[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELIF:  Why everyone seems to think music piracy is morally okay.

As a musician who wants to start putting music online soon, this is something I've been wondering about.  On one hand, I want more people to enjoy my music, even if they never pay for it.  On the other, I would like to make a living off of it, which won't be possible if there is never a sale.

Is there a way to support the artists I love, but not the industry I hate, all with a clear conscience?

There are plenty of arguments that seem common that I don't understand.

* It's okay because the there is an infinite amount of copies.  Someone, be it the artist or the label, is entitled to their money in exchange for a copy, even if they have unlimited copies, right?  That's the whole point of being for sale.

* Most of the money goes to the label, rather than the artist.  I believe that should be the other way around, but that doesn't change the fact that someone released it with the intent to receive compensation.  Even if the artist doesn't make the money, they still get your "vote."

* Why buy something when you can get it for free?  *Seriously?*  Isn't that the definition of stealing?

I'm still on the fence as to how I feel about it, so could someone help me to make an informed decision?

[Assistant] I'll say it in a way that'll make me unpopular but whatever: Humans are not rational creatures, they are rationalizing creatures. We think its right because its easy, we get away with it and no one we know is directly harmed. Every reason offered on top of that is just a rationalization for our existing behavior.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Are bees the only insect that dies when it loses its stinger?

[Assistant]
The upshot of having a barbed tail (which is why they tend to lose their stingers) is that the stinger is more likely to remain lodged in the flesh of a thick-skinned creature such as a human. Thus it will continue to irritate the predator and there'll be plenty of time for lots of venom to get into its system. It doesn't matter that the bee dies immediately after because Only worker bees have stingers to lose. The worker's stinger is a modified ovipositor. Queens lack a stinger because they have a proper ovipositor through which they lay their eggs. Drones don't have girl parts so they have no stinger.

Edit: also not all bees have barbed stingers. Bumblebees, for instance, do not.

tl;dr: the stinger is a bee vagina that makes poison instead of babies.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why do I sleep so much better when it's cold, yet feel very tired when its hot?

And when it's very hot, I can't fall asleep at all.

[Assistant]
Here's some educated speculation:
So, when you sleep, your body drops in core temperature. This is part of your circadian rhythm, and is triggered by a release of melatonin. This is to conserve energy during sleep. In a chilly environment, it is quite easy to drop your body temperature, and therefor easy to fall asleep.
In a hot environment, your body temperature might drop in order to maintain a healthy temperature. Since this effort by your body to drop your temperature is usually accompanied by sleeping, it might make you feel sleepy.
There might be some psychological things working in the background too, such as outside temperature being a cue as to when to sleep.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Halo]Aren't the Spartans overkill for their original purpose?

Why did the UNSC need Super soldiers to quell a civil war? Wouldn't some ODST's or other special forces be able to do the same job without the cost/ethical problems of the SPARTAN-II program?

[Assistant]
No, they made perfect sense. Remember that counterinsurgency is not so much a matter of force, as shown by the British, Russians and Americans in Afghanistan. It is much more a matter of precision and speed, and that is what the Spartans have over SAS, Spetznaz, Navy Seals, and even ODST.

If it were just a matter of killing terrorists then the UNSC could just MAC them from orbit, but that would turn far more people against them. To paraphrase from the movie War Machine, in counterinsurgency 20-5=>20. What the Spartans could do was go on the ground and eliminate every last combatant with zero shots missed, zero collateral damage, zero casualties taken, zero evidence left behind, etc. They were uniquely capable of combating insurrection and terrorism, making it so that 20-5=<20.

Also consider that insurrection was considered to be of paramount concern. Some study basically predicted that within a few decades insurrection and interstellar wars would definitely be a big problem, so the government decided to actually be decisive about it.

Also though Halsey is a transhumanist nutjob.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Witcher] Does the Axii sign work on absolutely everyone, or can very discerning people (sorceresses, for example) resist it?

[Assistant]
I believe it's essentially like the Jedi mind-trick. Convincing those with magical resistances or higher mental fortitude with Axii is going to require greater skill with the Sign, and convincing the target to do much more drastic actions is going to take a *lot* more skill. For instance, convincing a White Orchard peasant that's scared of Geralt that he wants to sit down and *not* fight Geralt, well that's not going to take a lot of Axii manipulation.

But using Axii on Emhyr and Radovid to create a peace accord? Near-fucking impossible, not just because of the anti-magic defences they have all over the place. They aren't the brightest individuals, but they're so hellbent on their objectives that Axii can't really convince them to permanently see things differently. Imagine it as the initial level of Axii convincing an uncertain and impressionable person to go down one particular route. More advanced Axii can convince a more boneheaded person that they might find Geralt's suggestion the best course of action. But sorceresses can actively block that kind of magic, and stronger individuals can recognise that something's messing with them.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How long can a fighter jet fly inverted or straight up vertical before fuel supply stops? For example; drive a car upside down, the engine would stop getting fuel because the fuel is at the wrong side of the tank, does a jet fuel tank work differently _because_ it flies upsidedown?

[Assistant]
There are ways of making fuel tanks work upside down. For example you can have a long fuel pickup tube with a float at the end so it will always bob up to the surface with the end sticking into the liquid no matter where that surface may be. You can also have multiple fuel pickups and lift pumps, two is usually enough for most maneuvers. It is also possible to have a flexible membrane in the fuel tank so it will always be full and the volume of the tank changes as it drains, etc.

Where it gets tricky is the fact that a vehicle does not have to have only one fuel tank. An airplane typically have multiple fuel tanks both in its wings and its main fuselage which is used as ballast to make the center of mass optimal. Military airplanes also have external drop tanks for extended range when needed. But even cars may have more then one fuel tank. Installing systems to handle extreme g forces like negative in all tanks may be too heavy and complex. So you typically do not have full fuel capacity while flying inverted.

A common thing to do is to install a small feeder tank for each engine in order to supply the engine with fuel at a constant pressure and flow rate no matter the external forces. This is sort of a bigger version of the carburetor fuel bowl. By making sure this tank can pick up fuel while inverted you do have good protection against flaming out during heavy maneuvers. And you can do things like switch between different pickups or different tanks depending on the forces without a gap in fuel supply. Even some cars have this type of tank installed if they are expected to see extreme cornering forces, inclines or freefall.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Black Sabbath] How did Iron Man get his revenge?

He was turned to steel in the great magnetic field and apparently it was up for debate whether he was alive or dead so exactly what was it that he did that caused the catastrophe that originally made him travel in time for the future of mankind?

[Assistant] He went to the future, saw the apocalypse and came back to warn people. On the trip back, he was transformed (via magnetic field) into a mute, metallic being. He attempted to warn people, but he couldn't speak and they mocked him instead. As a result, he went berserk killing everyone. He turned out to be the actual cause of the apocalypse he originally wanted to warn people about. His exact method of killing everyone isn't known.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [eli5] My friend put the car to neutral when coming to a stop light. He says it saves gas and it stops smoother. I agree on the smoother part, but does it actually save gas? He also put it to neutral when waiting for the lights to turn green for the same reason. Is it true?

[Assistant]
On most modern cars, when decelerating in gear, the ECU that controls the engine will actually cut fuel completely.  meaning you'll actually use **less** fuel by decelerating in gear than you would by idling in neutral while you roll to a stop.

Also, as others said, you'll also need to use more brakes without any help from the engine drag, meaning additional brake pad wear.

basically by decelerating in gear, your engine turns into a big ol air pump, using the momentum of the car to compress air and then release it.  You dont need (or want) any gas in the chamber for this.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Are lightwaves around us even when it's dark? If not, where exactly do they travel from when a light is turned on?

[Assistant]
Light moves really fast.

When you turn on the light switch, the light source will send out light everywhere and they will reach your eyes before you notice.

Light sources usually produce light either by running a current through a small string of metal, heating it until it glows white hot or by pushing electrons through a diode which will turn the energy into light.

Once the light leaves the light source it goes everywhere, reflecting of walls and ceiling and the floor and all objects in the room, it will also be deflected by the air in the room, lighting up parts somewhat that would otherwise be in total shadow.

This happens too fast for you to notice, so the moment you turn a switch there is light everywhere.

Regarding light waves being around in the dark, it depends a bit. Obviously darkness is the absence of visible light, so there is no light when it is dark. However it rarely is totally dark, there is always some tiny bits of light getting in unless you take extreme measures to ensure darkness.

There is also the question how you define "light" light is just part of the electromagnetic spectrum and the same sort of thing as radio waves, microwaves, x-rays and gamma rays. You just call them by different names depending on the frequencies. Many frequencies of light can travel as easily through walls as light can travel though a glass window, so those will be around even in a dark room.

Even worse everything gives of some light by virtue of not being at a temperature of absolute zero. With objects the temperature of a normal human living human body that is in the infra-red range. It is too far in the direction of red on a rainbow for humans to see. The higher the temperature goes the more the color shifts into the visible range until you have something hot enough that it first starts to glow a dull red and then a hot white.

So even in the dark you usually have some tiny amounts of visible light and the invisible light giving of by everything. This is how night vision google work. Either they take the tiny scraps of light that there are and amplify them so that your eyes can see them or they shift the invisible infra-red light up a bit into the spectrum where you can see it.

Even in the dark.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[ASOIAF] Why didn't the Kingdom of Westeros break apart after the usurping of King Aerys II, but it did after the killing of Ned Stark?

The Targaryens supposedly represent a dynasty that has lasted centuries without interruption. Robert Baratheon rebels, and King Aerys II is eventually killed and the Targaryens dethroned. After which Robert is crowned king.

That seems enormously convenient for Robert. If a centuries old dynasty is suddenly usurped, would we not expect anyone with an even modest claim to the throne to come out the woodwork, and the lords of the seven kingdoms to make their move for independence? We know they do so later when Robert dies, but that seems like the point where it makes less sense.

[Assistant] Westeros hadn't really healed from Robert's Rebellion, it had only begun the process. By killing Ned, Joffery showed the country just what kind of King he would be. Robert was also not a great king, by all accounts he was a drunkard, spent coin like mad, and was barely active in the court. People were willing to give Robert a chance because he was still better than what they'd had before his Rebellion, but when Joffery showed his true colors, it forced bold men to take action. The instability was too obvious for players like Stannis, Renly, and Greyjoy to ignore, and Rob Stark had to avenge his father.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why does English invariably demand that multiple adjectives precede its noun in the seemingly arbitrary but non-negotiable order of 'opinion - size - shape - colour - origin - material - purpose'?

You can have a 'lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife', but mess with this word order in the slightest and you'll sound like a proper maniac.

[Assistant]
Well, first off, you're missing four in your description and your example is out of order. And if your example sounds good to you, ask yourself if you're a proper maniac (you're not).

You're missing; quantity, which comes first; physical quality, which comes after size but before shape; age, which comes after shape but before color (your examples screws this up); and type, which comes after material and before purpose.

Some lists will have them in different orders, this one is from Cambridge University. And the fact of the matter is that it doesn't actually matter that much, it isn't actually a hard-and-fast rule.

The list keeps getting longer, too. At one point it was just two things; opinion and then fact. Then it was opinion > fact; qualifier > function. Now it's opinion > fact, qualifier > function, but only for correlatives (adjectives that modify nouns without modifying each other). Operators and cumulative words don't follow this trend.

As for why... well, it's a new area of study and no one's really figured that part out yet. We're still studying trends and old texts to see if they follow the example (and they don't, for sure) and even looking at different regions to see if we all do it the same (we don't).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why is it so difficult to interpret the works of philosophers from the past?

In other disciplines, students don't often read the texts where the ideas they are learning about were first expressed (e.g. in physics, students learn mechanics from a textbook rather than Newton's Principia). There is a sense that what the author meant in their original text can be better expressed in a modern textbook, and there is no worry that the process of doing this distorts the original idea. In Philosophy, by contrast, there's an entire field that has to do with interpreting Kant (for instance), and you couldn't teach a Kant class primarily through the use of a textbook and/or other secondary sources. Why is it that philosophers are worried about how to correctly interpret Kant's ideas, but people working in other disciplines (particularly the natural sciences and economics) are not worried about how to correctly interpret the ideas of their great thinkers?

[Assistant]
The question in the title of the post is different from the question at the end of the post. Let's go with the latter.

There's not going to be a single decisive reason for why we value the history of philosophy. Frankly, some people doing philosophy don't care about the history, and some are vocal about it.

Very often someone interested in what Kant says will be so interested because they think Kant is a smart guy dealing with interesting questions, and he might well be right about the matter at hand; maybe something else he says shows a really good grasp of some philosophical problem, and so you think his work is promising. But there's a part of it that's tricky because his wording's unclear, or he hasn't connected some dots explicitly for you. But you're a professional philosopher so you're pretty much obsessed with the questions Kant's asking and you'd really like an answer. So maybe you spend a few months thinking about Kant on the good will, or something.

Other times people will say that the history of philosophy is intrinsically valuable. Nobody objects to historians studying the Persian Wars, for example, just because that's not answering some philosophical question. And nobody objects to someone studying Shakespeare's work. Historians of philosophy study intellectual history perhaps for the same reason that people study ancient Greek history or Shakespeare: because they just like knowing stuff about something they find interesting. It's so much easier to not be bothered by "why does the history of philosophy matter?" if you take the history of philosophy *as history*, considering that history departments basically never have to justify their existence.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Does water have a high heat capacity because it is a polar molecule? Do all polar molecules have high heat capacity?

[Assistant]
The heat capacity of water is high because it has a great many numbers of *degrees of freedom*.

Water is a bent molecule.  That means it has 9 *possible* degrees of freedom: 3 translation degrees (x,y,z), 3 vibration degrees, and 3 rotation degrees.  Moreover, because water is also a polar molecule, and because individual water molecules are capable of interacting with each other via hydrogen bonds, these 9 degrees of freedom are relevant because the water molecules are capable of transferring energy between each other and into those 9 degrees of freedom.

Additionally, and this is what makes water really special, all 9 of those degrees of freedom correspond, on a quantum level, to relevant energies that you'll encounter at STP.  That is to say, there are degrees of freedom that are actually relevant at the temperatures (energies) we're actually interested in!  If you were to take, say, H_*2*_, which is a straight (not bent) diatomic gas, you find at the quantum level that yes, strictly speaking it may have three degrees of rotational freedom, but the rotation *along* the axis - spinning like a drill - is not relevant because the energy levels are so huge that it's not possible to transfer energy into that degree.  It turns out, that in water all 9 of those degrees correspond to energies you're likely to find at STP.

If you calculate out the thermodynamic temperature of water:

> T = 1 / (S/E)

...you find more degrees of freedom mean that the entropy (S) increases much more for water given an infinitesimal of energy.  A hand-waving, back-of-the-envelope explanation would be to say that there are more energy sinks available to absorb thermal energy before the temperature increases.

Now on top of all that, all those degrees of freedom also happen to be attached to a very "light" molecule.  Sure you can find more degrees of freedom in some polymer, with hundreds of atoms in a chain, but those damn things weigh a ton, and every atom you add to the molecule just increases it's molar mass, which renders intermolecular forces like hydrogen bonding less relevant while at the same time reducing C_*M*_ by increasing said mass.  As for C_*V*_, water also does a hell of a job keeping it's volume pretty low by existing in a liquid state at much higher temperatures than what one would expect for exactly those reasons: The (relevant) intermolecular forces.
 Water is just about the lightest compound one can think of that combines all these properties.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I think professional sports industry raises human beings, capable of emotion, intellectual reasoning, and empathy, to be nothing more than mere pack animals CMV

It just astounds me, to this day, that we pay people to be nothing more than the sum of their physical gifts and their dedication to manual labor.  We reinforce, at every stage of development, that they are nothing more than their speed, ability to put a ball in a basket, strength, etc.  And then we blame them when they fuck up and get a DUI, shoot themselves in the leg, or get physically aggressive.

Just fucking amazing.

[Assistant]
You can say this about any industry.  At the end of the day, other people are just a statistic to you.  Doctors, factory workers, pilots, all seen as the sum of their education and abilities.

Same way athlete's are.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] How do researchers check for West Nile Virus in mosquitoes, and how does that procedure work?

[Assistant] You test for the virus RNA by PCR. Grind up flies, extract all RNA, reverse transcribe to get DNA, & use primers specific for a conserved region of the viral genome to amplify that region (if its there). You can then run a gel of each sample to see if the region has been amplified.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why are more exotic isotopes of hydrogen/helium preferred for fusion, so much so, that mining the moon is considered potentially easier than developing the tech to use regular hydrogen?

[Assistant]
Regular hydrogen(H-1/protium) actually doesn't fuse well and is the limiting reaction in the sun.

To get two protons to fuse together you need them to hit and then trigger a beta+ decay to turn one into a neutron so they become deuterium.  If they both stay as protons they quickly fall back apart

So we instead using variants that are easier to get to hit and trigger fusion.  Deuterium (H-2) and Tritium (H-3) both fuse much more reliably and give a lot more energy per fusion event.  Deuterium fusing with Tritium is about 10x the energy per event of two protons fusing and becoming Deuterium

Fusing helium-3 together gives similar output per event but He-3 is stable and therefore wayyy more prevalent than Tritium which decays in about 12 years.

That said, the presence and quantity of helium-3 is largely irrelevant until we actually get stable functional fusion power and we're still a longggg ways off from that.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What is pus and what function does it serve in healing wounds?

[Assistant]
The comments about pus being a byproduct of infection and inflammation are quite right, although it's worth remembering that the creation of pus is specifically related to clearing infection from the body. White blood cells are attracted to the site of disease through processes like chemotaxis (migrating to sites that have high levels of chemicals either released by bacteria, or released by other white blood cells), and pus is formed as they engulf bacteria and then lyse/destroy them. All of the dead blood cells, bacteria and other breakdown products are what form pus (and by weight it's almost all white blood cells).

Like most processes relating to infection, you can have too much of a good thing, and while the inflammatory response is necessary for healing, pus building up to the visible levels the OP is thinking of is a sign that infection is not under control. If pus collects into an abscess, it's best to drain it away - even if you are on antibiotics, the pH changes considerably in the middle of an abscess, and antibiotics may not penetrate to the middle or work as well.

The belief that pus was necessary to healing is an old one, so the question is common - "laudable pus" was though to be a good part of healing and so encouraged until fairly recently in medical history!

Source: infectious diseases physician.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
The Moon's orbit is getting larger by approximately 3,8 cm per year. Will this number increase or decrease in the future, or will it stay the same?

Just recently Terra Nova aired for the first time in Germany. Long story short, it takes place in the past (85 million years I think) and one of the characters said the (past) moon's orbit would increase by 0,5 cm per year. So, was that character just terribly wrong or does this number increase over time?

[Assistant]
From Wiki: The Moon is gradually receding from the Earth into a higher orbit, and calculations suggest that this would continue for about fifty billion years. By that time, the Earth and Moon would become caught up in what is called a "spinorbit resonance" in which the Moon will circle the Earth in about 47 days (currently 27 days), and both Moon and Earth would rotate around their axes in the same time, always facing each other with the same side. However, the slowdown of the Earth's rotation is not occurring fast enough for the rotation to lengthen to a month before other effects change the situation: about 2.1 billion years from now, the increase of the Sun's radiation will have caused the Earth's oceans to vaporize, removing the bulk of the tidal friction and acceleration.

In essence, there will be noticeable effects as the moon slowly recedes, but Earth will become uninhabitable in about 2 billion years because of the Sun's expansion and the Moon is the least of our problems.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What makes a "Special Agent" so special? Does the FBI/etc have Un-special agents?

[Assistant]
An Agent is simply a representative of the government who can conduct investigations. They do not possess the special power to also arrest people. FBI agents are Special Agents because they are able to both conduct investigations and they possess the special power to make arrests.

They have agents and they have special agents.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How can I lose 2 kg or more of weight in a week, when each kilogram of fat has around 9000 kcal, and an average human male needs 16800 kcal per week?

So I've recently started a diet, plus going to the gym often, and I lost like 3 kg the first week (already consulted it just in case it was bad for my health, by the way), and I didn't lose muscle mass or water. How can I lose so much, when that's burning more fat per day than I'd need to if I didn't eat at all?

[Assistant] Firstly, you lose water. Also, with dieting comes the fact that you're literally storing less food in your body than normal. You'll probably bloat less with a diet change. Exercise contributes to calorie burning, too. Finally, your weight can fluctuate a little and scales aren't perfect.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Sometimes when we sleep, we wake up feeling very refreshed and energized. Sometimes we wake up feeling very sore and stiff. Assuming that the same amount of sleep was needed in both instances, why do we sometimes wake up sore and groggy?

[Assistant]
you actually "deep" sleep in ~1.5 hour cycles. if you wake up in the middle of one of those cycles you'll feel groggy. if you time it to wake at the end of those cycles, you'll feel more refreshed.

in your scenario where you've slept the same amount of time, i'd guess something was disturbing your deep sleep, but not enough to "fully" wake yourself up.

there are some alarm clocks/apps that monitor your sleep (via movement) and will wake you up when you are not in a deep sleep cycle.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How does a graphics card work?

I've been looking into computer parts as of late and am wondering how exactly a graphics card works, what it does, and what makes one graphics card better than another. I'm practically a 5 year old when it comes to computers, so... ELI5.

[Assistant]
A computer is like a guy doing a lot of math and calculation for you.  We'll call him Brian because he's like the brain of your computer (get it? haha).  The graphic card is like an artist that works with Brian.  We'll call her Gracie.  Gracie can draw whatever Brian asks her to and show it to you.

At the basic level, Brian can simply tell Gracie what color should each spot be on the picture.  He does all the calculations and she just merely executes the change.  Her only job is to remember what color goes where for the whole picture, until Brian tells her that some spots are now in a different color.

But that's a lot of work for Brian and he's got other calculations to do, while Gracie's only job is to paint the picture.  So we came up with better graphic cards that can do more than just coloring spots.  That is, Gracie learned new tricks.  Now Brian can ask her to draw a line between two points and she will, on her own, color all the spots between these points so that it looks like a line.  Or Brian can ask for a triangle and only give Gracie the three corners of the triangle.  She will fill the triangle on her own.

That's better but we can still alleviate Brian's job.  One way to do it is Windows acceleration (or another Operating System).  What happens is that your OS does a lot of the same things when using windows: there's a background image, then there are windows, with a border drawn in a specific way, maybe a gradient on the title bar, specific scrollbars, buttons to close or resize, etc.  Rather than have Brian tell Gracie the full instructions on how to draw each of these all the time, Gracie can learn how to draw those windows.  Now Brian only needs to tell Gracie where a window is, what size it is, what buttons it has, and Gracie will draw the title bar, the buttons, the scrollbars, etc on her own.  Additionally, Gracie remembers what's behind each window, so that when you move a window, she can draw what's behind it without Brian having to tell her.

That's for the operating system.  When it comes to games, Gracie will learn to draw in 3D.  Brian will only tell her where the objects are, what their sides are like in color and texture, where the light is coming from... And Gracie will calculate on her own what parts of the objects are visible or hidden, what is their color according to lighting, how the texture looks like in these specific conditions, if they are transparent or reflective, etc.  Now she's really an artist.

And that's where the difference comes from.  There are better and worse artists.  The better artists will have more tricks up their sleeves: they can calculate reflections, special lighting effects, apply special filters...

A better artist is also a faster artist.  All these calculations require time, and you need many pictures per second for a smooth animation.  Maybe Gracie can only draw five shiny shapes in such a time.  If Brian asks for more shapes, she won't be able to keep up.  Or you can ask her to remove the shiny effect so that she can draw faster.  Or you can hire a new artist that can draw 20 shiny shapes at the required speed.

That's how it is with graphic cards.  Better graphic cards can draw faster, and they have more tricks up their sleeves, which can alleviate the CPU calculations and/or make the image look better.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why are potassium supplements so regulated ?

So a grown male should get around 4500mg of potassium a day.
When I was looking for supplements I noticed that most of them only have around 50-100mg per pill and found out that it is because set regulations from the FDA.

I get that too much potassium can be lethal, but I don't understand where the logic in regulating the supplement is, when you could just eat 200 grams of pistachios and get 40 times the amount of a normal supplement dose.
Wouldn't that be equally dangerous ? Could you kill yourself if you eat a lot of spinach, pistachios and avocados for example ?

[Assistant]
Quite simply, the 50-100mg potassium supplements are not likely to increase your potassium level by any biologically relevant amount, and that's totally intentional.

Any potassium pill large enough to measurably raise your serum potassium is restricted to prescription-only, because it's potentially deadly. A lot of older people have poor kidney function. High potassium can be very rapidly fatal and if you can't pee out the potassium you're in trouble.

So you can get a 10 mEq (750mg) or 20 mEq (1,500mg) potassium pill, but it'll be a prescription.

Taking 20 mEq (1,500mg) of potassium in pill form is much more deadly than eating 1500mg of potassium in avocado or potato or pistachio form. Pills are absorbed into your body very rapidly, while foods are digested slowly, so with food you have more time to get rid of excess K. (and your body may or may not even absorb all of the K in a solid-food meal)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How are athletes with different disabilities sorted to compete against each other for the Paralympics?

[Assistant]
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) publishes a handbook that establishes the different levels of disability. There are a ton of categories. Swimming, for instance, has 15 different categories, ranging from S1 "very severe coordination problems in four limbs or have no use of their legs, trunk, hands and minimal use of their shoulders only," up to S15 which is for athletes who have hearing loss (but have full function of their limbs)

Athletes are classified by their country's Paralympic body as per the IPC regulations.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: how is it possible that we can only see between 430-770 Thz and hear 20hz-20khz? Does that mean there are things around us we just cannot hear or see?

EDIT: if aliens were real, and they were on a different spectrum/wavelength is it possible they could be anywhere and we would have no clue?

SECOND EDIT: wow thank you all so much for your responses. Ill try my best to read through all the comments!

[Assistant]
Sure, there are lots of things we can't see or hear.
The chemicals in your eyes are only sensitive to narrow wavelengths of visual light.  Anything outside that is invisible to us.

You can not, for example, see the infrared light emitted by your TV remote. But your phone camera can, to a certain degree. Go into a dark room, point your TV remote at your phone camera, and you should see it light up.

Same thing with sound. Your eardrum and middle ear bones are only able to resonate within a certain frequency range. Go above and the bones are too heavy to move that quickly, go below and the eardrum is too small to be put in motion by such a long wavelength.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Can you get drunk by inhaling alcohol vapors?

[Assistant] Yes and theres quite a few different commercial products to facilitate this that use either pressure or heat to isolate the vapor. Its more dangerous as the alcohol gets into your bloodstream directly instead of going through the normal digesting process.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[The Matrix] What is the role of the Merovingian and why is he given this name?

What is his relation to the real Merovingian dynasty?

[Assistant]
This is perhaps one of the oldest questions about The Matrix.

To put it concisely, Merv is a very old program who holds vast authority through his ability to save programs from deletion, to move programs in and out of the system and he always keeps his word. merv himself is not particularly powerful and he is not a fighter, but he does have a considerable knowledge of the matrix and is aware of its history.

Also, Merv fashions himself as a competitor with The Oracle, but unlike her, Merv is not integral to the functioning of The Matrix meaning he can be deleted and the system roles on.

Now, the structure of the matrix is such that the system is on a cycle centered around The One, but the actual history inside the matrix has been moving steadily forward for a long, long time. Merovingian may have taken his name from the titular French dynasty.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: When a worm gets split in two, how do both halves remain alive and seemingly react to things?

I was fishing today (using nightcrawlers as bait) and the question came to mind. Sorry if it's worded poorly.

[Assistant]
In the long term, a bisected earthworm won't survive to make two new worms (although flatworms like planaria can survive being chopped into bits). An earthworm has a heart and a brain and other necessary organs up near the front.

In the short term, muscles and nerves can continue to function for quite some time after being removed from the rest of an organism. A fresh fish fillet- with no blood, bones, just muscle completely removed from the rest of the fish- can twitch for hours after the fish is killed. Until the individual muscle and nerve cells actually die they can still do their job, and nerves can randomly fire a signal to a muscle cell to contract as various chemical reactions occur in the nerve and tissue.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[movies]How did thor return to earth

So after watching the new Thor trailer, I was wondering how did he come back to earth when the bifrost bridge was destroyed? Why did he not come back to see whats-her-face during or after the events of the avengers?

[Assistant]
Thor was sent to take care of Loki (capture and return him to Asgard), which culminated as the events that ended with the Battle of Manhattan Island.

Loki himself even commented to Thor, "How much Dark Energy did Father use to send you here?"

Therefore it is possible that Odin has the ability to send people across the planes even without the Bifrost - though at some (unknown cost.)

However having access to the Tesseract it's conceivable that Odin instead was able to recharge in some way that cost and return Thor and Loki to Asgard (post-BoMI) and then again send Thor back to Midgard.

It's also possible the Bifrost is repaired, and we just don't know it yet.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Asteroids] Why do asteroids phase through each other harmlessly but destroy ships and UFOs?

[](/twisad) We've lost a lot of good men in that warped pocket universe, all for the cause of destroying those blasted asteroids. A single touch at their speeds can destroy one of our vessels, and even the heavily armored saucers those filthy aliens cruise around in.

[](/sp)

[](/twiponder) Since they're natural constructs with no agency of their own, rattling around a tiny pocket universe at high speeds, I'd expect them to crash into each other all the time. But our sensors just show their outlines merging together until the two pass each other by. How does this occur?

[Assistant]
You're looking at a 2-D representation of a 3-D world.  The asteroids are all on different planes along the Z-axis.  When you see them pass "through" each other you are actually seeing them pass over/under each other.

Now you're probably wondering why your ship, and the aliens, are constantly getting hit.  Again, 2-D to 3-D issues.  You are seeing the top of your vessel, but it actually extends all the way along the Z-axis.  When you fire, you percieve only a little blip of energy but in truth it is a massive bar of energy, thus allowing it to strike every asteroid regardless of its position on the Z-axis.  This was done to simplify your mission; you need only worry about the X and Y-axis positions of the asteroids.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [MCU/Doctor Strange] So the individuals at Kamar-Taj protect the Earth from mystical threats while the Avengers from more physical threats. Whats the true difference between magic and science? Wouldnt the line just be arbitrary?

[Assistant]
it is, Thor flat out says that we treat them as seperate things but his people dont distinguish a difference.

Why the kamar-taj folk are so reclusive (and secretive with their art) has to come down to the original motives of Agammoto (who could have been an alien and not wanted the vast jump in power he was introducing to the world (by teaching folk mandala-magic) to disrupt history or get the notice of asguardians or something).

We know that he had excellent mastery of the time stone, so could have been trying to sculpt a particular future, and we know that asguardians saw themselves as protectors of Midgard in the past and would likely react poorly to some rando alien uplifting them, so both are possible reasons to create a hidden culture.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [MCU] Dr Strange is a regular dude without any abilities that learned magic. Is the Scarlet Witch also a regular dudette, or is she a mutant with magic-looking abilities but not an actual wizard?

[Assistant] Strange is not a regular dude, he has an eidetic memory. Scarlet witch, in the MCU, is not a mutant, but an enhanced individual via the mind stone and whatever experiment von Strucker put them through (in the comics shes a mutant, but they retconned that in the MCU since they cant use the term mutant)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] What was the point of Operation Cinder? (spoilers)

>Operation: Cinder was carried out by the Galactic Empire as a means of devastating several Imperial planets in 4 ABY, only a few weeks following the Battle of Endor. The operation was part of the Contingency, a plan devised by Emperor Palpatine to ensure that the Empire and its enemies did not outlive him should he ever perish. The plan was put into action following the Emperor's death during the Battle of Endor.

I'm not exactly sure, but I'm pretty sure there's a line in ROS where Palpatine mentions that he's died before and that resurrection is nothing new to him. So what was the point of torpedoing his empire? Why not just have the plan be "hey guys if I die just pick my body up on the sith planet and plug some tubes into me"?

[Assistant]
It was a culling. As far as Palpatine was concerned, the main purpose of an empire is to protect its emperor. It had failed to do that which meant it had grown too big and was inefficient. So his plan was to basically wipe out most of it except for the select few he hand picked. And in doing so he would also wipe out most of the New Republic so the select few he picked to become the first order could go in and fill the power vacuum when they were ready.

The wiping out the New Republic thing didnt work out when they failed to blow up Jakku, but it did trim down the fat of the empire and let them go off to rebuild in secret.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why is Putin a "bad guy"?

A lot of people in the West and Russia seem to dislike Putin and are against him rule. To me it appears that he's done a lot of good for Russia. After Yeltsen privatized most of Russia's economy to the mafia and damaged the economy, Russian economy hasn't grown at a rate before in recent times as it has under Putin's rule. He has managed to bring Russia out of the ruins of the cold war into an economic superpower once again.

So why is it that so many people dislike him and say he's a bad guy?

[Assistant]
Everything you're talking abut is true.

Had Putin left after his first term, he would have been one of the greatest russian politicians ever. He was literally a russian economic savoir.

Problem was what he did after that first term. Essentially, he continued to take economic power from the entrenched old oligarchs and transferred them a new oligarch loyal to him. He implemented a bunch of policies that made the country less democratic. He pretty much consolidated power and turned himself into as much of a modern day Tsar as he could get away with. People had issues with that.

Internationally, he started having russia acting like a superpower again through economic and military actions both. That stepped on toes. While the western powers tended to at least try on the surface to be aligned with the right ideals like promotion of democracy and human rights etc, Putin tended to go with "russia first, russia forever, fuck eveything else"

All that aside, he has been in power for 13 years (lol @ Medvedev). while his initial years has had a huge great to russian economy, his policies in latter years have been less beneficial. His policies latter on, in many people's views, crippled its growth while benefiting himself (i.e what i said about him giving economic power to his own allies). Russia's economy is great now compared to what it was before he took power, but thats kind of a low yardstick to compare against for 13 years. If he had rooted out corruption instead of facilitated it and done things in other ways (that would have resulted in less economic control by his own faction), the overall economy might even be better today.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] How high would the lunar return module of the Apollo lander be able to go if it left from the surface of the earth?

[Assistant] The ascent engine could only lift the ascent stage in lunar gravity, where is had 1/6 of it's earth weight.  On earth, the stage and fuel weighed around 10,000 pounds.  The engine had a thrust of 3,500 pounds.  So, the answer to your question is it would not even lift off.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] What is the difference between Values, principles, and virtues, and how do you find your own?

[Assistant]
ELI5 Answer:

* Values are the things that you think are good, or better than others. E.g. "I value honesty more than comfort." "I value original music compositions." "I value cheeseburgers."

* Principles are rules for behavior, or maxims. E.g., "Never cheat." or "When a friend asks to borrow money, do not agree unless you are prepared to lose the sum."

* Virtues are character traits or dispositions. In other words, a tendency to behave in a certain way given a particular situation. E.g. The virtue of courage is to respond appropriately when faced with danger--not too willing to engage the danger, and not too willing to flee.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Are fallen leaves traceable to their specific tree of origin using DNA analysis, similar to how a strand of hair is traceable to a specific person?

[Assistant] The same principle applies, but some populations of trees have little or no genetic variation. Some trees, such as aspens, can live in large clonal populations where there is minimal genetic variation. Of course, if a person has an identical twin you cant tell them apart with genetic testing either.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I know we use a base 10 number system to count and a base 2 number system as binary for computers, but what are some examples of what we use other number bases for (base 3, base 4, base 5, etc...)?

Thank you all for your answers! I feel like I learned more here than in all 13 years of grade school.

[Assistant]
Base 8 (octal) used to be used a lot in computing; even today base 16 (hexadecimal) is.

They're useful because they are far shorter to write and easier to read than binary, yet they line up in columns that match the bytes and words used in binary. (I.e. a number that's a fixed number of bits long will also be a fixed number of hexadecimal digits long, while in decimal it might vary in length)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] What does the Pfizer COVID-19 Anti-Viral Pill Do? How does it differ from taking Monoclonal Antibody Treatment in treating COVID-19?

[Assistant]
The antiviral pill is a protease inhibitor.
To create copies of itself the virus first produces one big protein which must get chopped into useful pieces.
The viral protease is the enzyme which does this chopping up.
By blocking the proteass the virus can't make copies of itself which slows and reverses the infection.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why can't we understand animals?

For example dolphins communicate with whistles and clicks, why haven't we been able to interpret them or figure out what they're saying?

[Assistant]
Well we can. If you look for information you will see that we know a lot about dog's communication. There is two problems that we face.

1) Animals communicate, but don't have a language. A language is precise, but communication is messy. Try communicate with someone without using language, you have far less diversity in the mean you have and that make your communication more limited and less complex than if you would use a language.

2) We need to observe the communications to understand it. It's easy to do with a dog, far less to do with dolphin, so of course we understand a lot less about Dolphin communication vs Dog communication.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Stephen Hawking said "philosophy is dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science - particularly in physics." - Can someone elaborate? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this argument and what would modern philosophers make of the statement?

[Assistant]
>Can someone elaborate?

What this means is that Hawking does not know anything about philosophy, including modern philosophy, but is willing to make bold unjustified inaccurate claims about matters of which he is entirely ignorant.

> What are the strengths and weaknesses of this argument and what would modern philosophers make of the statement?

The strengths of the argument are that it is concise and that it is relatively clear about what point it is trying to make. The weaknesses of the argument are that it is false and that it perpetuates an inaccurate picture of philosophy which is commonly held among the ignorant, doubly so because the originator of the argument is a famous person and so his opinion carries more weight with many people.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: When did people stop believing in the old gods like Greek and Norse? Did the Vikings just wake up one morning and think ''this is bullshit''?

[Assistant]
Usually in those days the average person on the street, didn't have too much choice in what religion they wanted to be. For the most part you were whatever religion everyone else in your village was and everyone was the religion that the person in charge said they were.

If the tribal leader or king converted to Christianity for political reasons, the people followed, not necessarily because they wanted to, but because they had no choice.

For example Harald Bluetooth for which the Bluetooth wireless connection is named became a Christian and then he became King of all Danes and then the Danes became Christians because he said so.

In practice many conversion efforts only slapped a new label on pagan customs and traditions. Old gods were relabeled as saints old feasts became Christian feasts and many kept doing what they had been doing all along with only gradual change of the underlying stuff.

Individual people may have converted because they were convinced by theological arguments, but the majority switched because they were told to by people you couldn't disagree.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Warcraft] What was the Lich King's endgame?

I know that Ner'Zhul betrayed the Burning Legion, it's why he was sealed inside the Frozen Throne in the first place. He then instigated the War of the Spider to secure Northrend, and finally brought ruin to all of the Eastern Kingdoms with the Plague. This was all in preparation for the Legion's Second Invasion.

It's clear, though, that Ner'Zhul desired freedom from the Legion. After all, it was Arthas who dropped the info on the Skull of Gul'Dan to Illidan, which led to the death of Tichondrius and eventually the downfall of Archimonde's Legion.

Later, Arthas dons the Crown of Domination after defeating Illidan and saving the Scourge from total destruction. This fuses Arthas and Ner'Zhul into one being, the Lich King (making the term "Lich King" more than just a title).

The Lich King then sleeps and wakes up 6 or 7 years later (assuming a one-year gap between Vanilla WoW, Burning Crusade, and WotLK) and proceeds to stir up trouble for everyone. It's obvious he wants to bring Undeath to everyone, but why? What's the point in doing that? Does he think that doing so will make Azeroth better prepared against another invasion from the Burning Legion? If that's the case, why doesn't he just bolster everyone else's forces since it's obvious that even with the Scourge on the side of the Legion during the Third War, it was still a victory for the good guys (though it was a close victory that came at a large cost).

[Assistant]
They did not fuse. While sitting on that throne, there was a battle of wills going on between the 3 'inhabitants' of the Lich King. Arthas, Ner'zhul, and Frostmourne. Ner'zhul lost, and ended up in a purgatory of some sort.

As for the Frostmourne/Arthas combo... Frostmourne wanted one thing. To feast on souls. It didn't have any greater agenda, and convinced Arthas to serve it's ends by playing to his.

Arthas wanted to be king. He wanted a kingdom. HIS Kingdom. He wanted subjects that were loyal to him (unlike Uther and Jaina, who refused his orders and turned his backs on them) and he wanted lands free of any enemies (like the Orcs, or the Legion) forever. He wanted his perfect kingdom to stretch across Azeroth, and all living things to serve as loyal subjects of the rightful crown. And if they wouldn't, they would be made to.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why is The Fed printing $2T not risking hyperinflation (while other countries in the past printing money had resulted in that)

I read this NPR article about how The Fed printing money is not likely to cause hyperinflation as the money is unlikely to flood the market and drive up prices of commodities.

In the case of say Zimbabwe or Venezuela, why does hyperinflation happen? Is it a matter of scale of printing?

[Assistant]
In the case of what the fed does right now, they are providing relief for a lack of liquidity through collateralised short term loans. Once those loans are paid back, the money is destroyed again. It's also not really money that enters the "general economy" but just to fulfill outstanding debt obligations between companies and banks.

What countries like Venezuela did is different. They fund their governments through money creation, so the government can buy goods and services. That is money that does enter the economy, leading to inflation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Eli5: What is the phantom sensation of a phone ringing in your pocket when it's not even there?

[Assistant]
Your muscles twitch a little bit, randomly. Bundles of muscle fibers will contract a little bit, just to keep the blood circulating. Normally, these movements are too small for you to notice. You have a lot of strong muscles in your legs, so if you sit still for long enough, sometimes the random movements are large enough to feel if you're paying close attention.

You can learn to pay attention to the sensation of vibration in your legs. This is what happens over time when you keep your phone in your pocket and check it whenever it vibrates - you've rewarded yourself with interesting content/social connection for checking that vibration. So you learn to pay attention to vibrations in your leg.

Then your muscles contract randomly, and it vibrates the muscle. So you go to check it.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI 5: when someone has cancer, what exactly kills them?

[Assistant]
Basically, cancer is out-of-control cell growth. Normally cells are pretty good at regulating their growth, and they stop growing when they're supposed to (e.g., when your liver is the size it's supposed to be, it stops creating new liver cells, except as needed to replace the old ones).

Cancer cells have the parts of their DNA that control cell growth damaged, so they just keep growing and growing.

Normally they start out confined to one place, so you just get a big lump of cancer cells, called a tumor. Then some cells start breaking off and spreading throughout the body, and they seed new tumors all over. This is called metastasis, and this is where things get bad. The tumors all over your body just keep growing. Some of then grow inside your organs, or near your organs, and start crushing them. This interferes with the normal function of your organs, and eventually kills you.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why do human eyes turn red when a flash is used but dog eyes turn green?

Edit: Explained, everyone! Thank you for all the great answers! Very much appreciated!

[Assistant] We have slightly different retinas than dogs do. Dogs have the ability to see in very low lighting because what appears green is a layer in their eyes that reflects light within the eyeball in order to increase the amount of light that hits the photoreceptors. Humans lack this adaptation but many other vertebrates have it. The red is most likely just a reflection of blood vessels.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[The Simpsons] Would Ned Flanders appreciate the wholesome Christian content of DOOM?

It's all about killing demons, so wouldn't he be fine with his sons playing it?

[Assistant] Well in S11E14 "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" Ned lets Rod and Todd play Billy Grahams Bible Blaster where you shoot heathens with bibles to convert them, so he doesn't mind christian themed video games with guns. And in S16E8 "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass" he also demonstrate a surprisingly liberal attitude towards exposing his kids to violent media, so long as that media's telling them bible stories. DOOM however despite being generally anti-satan, doesn't have many overtly christian themes, it isn't a bible story (in fact the bible never even mentions a portal to hell on Mars) and worse of all DOOMguy never uses the most powerful demon quashing weapon in his arsenal: Prayer. Really the game should be over in the first five minutes as soon as DOOMguy finishes saying amen. The fact that it doesn't wouldn't sit right with Ned at all. No siree Bob.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Assuming the existence of a God (for the sake of argument), why would they need to create a universe?

If they truly knew everything as the Abrahamic God is said to do, then isn't it more probable that we only exist in their imagination because why would a god bother creating a physical universe when their omniscience would make them capable of knowing how every possible combination of parameters of universes would turn out?

[Assistant] There is a complex and diverse history of work by philosophers and theologians about creation. But here are two typical sorts of respones to your proposal: One, that the hypothetical scenario you propose is deficient in that it involves no real relationship between things, no real plurality of things, no real diversity of things, etc., and this deficiency is incompatible to the power of the creator, whose creative act is precisely an act meaning to bring about relations, plurality, diversity, etc. Two, that the hypothetical scenario you propose is deficient in that it involves no real distinction between good states of affairs and bad states of affairs, both of which are conceived by the divine intellect, and this deficiency is incompatible with the goodness of the creator, whose creative act is precisely an act meaning to bring about a good state of affairs, so that the divine will would choose to bring it about that there is in reality only one of the many states of affairs the divine intellect can conceive, namely the one that is the best.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[He-Man] Why was King Greyskull so powerful?

Using his power, Adam was able to go toe-to-toe with Injustice Superman in the DC crossover. A version of Superman who is no longer holding back. Where did this power come from? Does it come from the Star seed or some other power source?

[Assistant]
King Grayskull is connected to the Goddess of magic in his universe; the totality of magic in existence. Grayskull, the castle, is a conduit for everything non-scientific that is.

*Completely* parallel to that, he is also very, very strong.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[The Thing] what if the outpost men actually understood Lars and let him explain what the dog thing is?

What if Gary didnt shoot him but actually let him explain?

[Assistant]
Here's the problem.

A dog runs into your house looking afraid for its life.  Your door gets knocked down by a strange man with a gun and multiple grenades screaming.  He tells you that the dog is a alien who killed all his friends and that he's here to kill it.

Are you going to believe the lunatic with a gun and explosives or the innocent dog.

You instead lock him up and wait for the proper authorities. And the movie goes exactly the same.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What does it mean when a series converges? Laymans terms.

I know that if you use it in the context of area under a curve that when it is convergent, it has a finite area. When it is divergent then it has an infinite area. Thanks guys.

[Assistant]
Consider 1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16... each term is smaller than the last and each additional term brings the series closer to 2. This is a convergent series, each additional term brings it closer to converging on a finite value.

Consider 1/2+1/3+1/4+1/5+1/6+1/7... this series does not converge. It reaches infinity with an infinite number of terms, or an arbitrarily large number with a very large number of terms.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
eli5 - Why do old cars have more visible smoke coming out of their exhausts?

Where is that smoke coming from? Does this means they consume more gasoline?

[Assistant]
Older engines are less efficient at burning gasoline. The smoke is partially burnt or even unburnt gasoline that is wasted.

Modern engines are better at ensuring a better fuel air ratio with more complete combustion making them more powerful and more efficient.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How do we actually reproduce the flavor of something? For example, how do companies go from an actual banana to creating something that is banana flavored, but contains no bananas, like gum?

[Assistant]
Take an organic chemistry class and you'll likely find out in lab!

Basically, something's flavors and scents tend to come from only a handful of certain chemicals. If we're talking about food, these compounds are probably aromatic compounds, which means they have a benzene ring somewhere in there. Anyway, make these compounds and you've basically created the flavor and scent you're after.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why do US Presidents Keep Imposing Tariffs?

If I recall Reagan, G.W. Bush, and Obama all introduced tariffs, like Trump has.

If tariffs are bad economic policy why do US Presidents keep introducing them?

[Assistant]
Because what makes good economic policy doesn't necessarily make for popular economic policy. Usually because the public doesn't take economists as seriously as other scientists and so prefer to believe what's politically or cognitively convenient rather than what the literature asserts.

Honestly though this would be a better question for a sociologist or a political scientist than an economist.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] What's the purpose of measuring something's half-life?

[Assistant]
I am assuming you mean radioactive half life. There are lots of reasons.  The most basic is really just for the basic science.  We want to understand the universe.  By measuring half lives we can compare those values to theory.  We could also improve our theories with those values.

In addition, knowing the half life can allow you to use that information to learn other things.  For example, radioactive dating.  We can figure out the age of rocks and artifacts and fossils because we accurately know the half life for various isotopes.

We need to know the half life for isotopes used in nuclear reactors in order to account for the heating and neutron flux within them.  There are a lot more reasons, these are just what comes to mind right now.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Marvel / MCU] While it's obvious that Tony Stark flatly refuses to divulge the secrets of the Iron Man armor, does he make the individual components (somewhat more) publicly available?

If this sub's anything to go by, it's far more than just the arc reactor that makes the Iron Man special.  Inertial dampeners, real-time physical analysis, augmented reality, the works...does Stark Industries make these individual breakthroughs a little more readily available for the common man?

[Assistant]
Since giving up weapons Stank Industries must be making money *somehow*.  We know he's going into energy, but there was at least a 10 year gap when he was neither selling weapons nor seen to have deployed arc reactors for grid powering - so what was he doing?

If you look at real life analogs that use sophisticaded AI, like google and microsoft, they make money by licensing out use of their AI - Stank must do the same with the Jarvis/Friday platforms.  Since the collapse of Pym Technologies I'd also bet that Stark hired every researcher and lab assistnat he could get his hands on that came out of it to try to miniturize tech (to fit more things in his suit and to just in general push the boundaries of what's possible).

AI is way more advanced in the MCU than here, so factory automation and self-driving vehicles should be more common there, all needing technologies from the worlds leading expdrt on AI.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How are all these "other" B and C movies getting made, and do they even make money?

As I scroll through apps like Tubi TV and others, I see so many random films (mostly low budget I assume) that weren't released in theaters, but some even have known actors.  Are these films profitable, and if not what's the point?

[Assistant] They can be. A lot of these movies will get together some kind of budget and then give most of it to one really big star. That person may only be on set for two or three days, and so theyll rush through all of their scenes and then film the rest of the movie with whatever little budget they have left. Theyll put the star very prominently on the cover, even though they may not be in much of the movie, and that is usually good enough to sell to a streaming service or stock a few redboxes or sell a few DVDs at grocery line checkouts to make their money back.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [AsoIaF/GoT] Stannis and Renly team up. How does this change the story?

[Assistant]
Kings Landing would have most certainly been sacked by the combined force of both Renly and Stanniss armies. Considering Stannis only really failed his assault due to Highgarden joining Tywin Lannisters cause after Renlys death and aiding Tywin and his armies with assaulting Stanniss troops at the Mud Gate, without that aid Tywin would have been beaten back.

Its likely that Tywin would have instead know that due to the sheer size of Renlys armies (and added to Stanniss numbers) defending the city would be futile and he would have had Cersei and Joffrey fall back to Casterly Rock. This would have likely effected Robs decisions and may have even prevented the Red Wedding (or simply pushed it back further in time).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Has the increase in size of hard drives stagnated? Why?

I have a 1 TB external hard drive that's four years old. Nowadays most large hard drives are two or three TB. The increase in size used to be larger, iirc, so can someone explain why it slowed down?

[Assistant]
Part of it is economic, not technical reasons.  4TB for <$200, that's so huge and cheap, you are almost giving away storage.  Traditional hard drives have reached a plateau of "good enough", the market just isn't clamouring for cheap 8TB drives yet.

What the market does want is cheaper, bigger, faster, longer lived SSD drives, and the is the focus of current product development.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Is there logic, and has any theory been written around the idea that God, in the context of religion is a scapegoat or rather an excuse for the shortcomings of human behavior?

When someone says, for example when a natural disaster occurs and people die that, "God has a plan," rather than, "We should have done a better job building that building or evacuating that population, and we knew this was vulnerable but we didn't want to spend the money needed to do it right." By convincing people that God did this for a reason we can't possibly understand, we place the blame elsewhere for what could have been preventable.

[Assistant]
In *The Essence of Christianity*, Ludwig Feuerbach advanced the view that God is an outward projection of a human's inward nature.

>  God is for man the commonplace book where he registers his highest feelings and thoughts, the genealogical album into which he enters the names of the things most dear and sacred to him. (pg. 66 of the Barnes & Noble version)

So, in your example, God acts as the projection of man's own ideal of omniscience which man self-consciously recognizes is a limitation for man in general. Feuerbach also discusses how an individual can project their individual limitations to be limitations of man as a species, which ties into the kind of thought process you're thinking of, i.e. "We didn't anticipate this, and therefore no human could have anticipated this - only God could."


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why do lamps with the twist thing always tick twice?

Why does the twist thing on traditional lamps always tick twice to be turned on or off?

[Assistant]
> Why does the twist thing on traditional lamps always tick twice to be turned on or off?

They don't always click twice, they only click twice on lamps which are designed to work with bulbs that have two brightness settings. If you put a single brightness bulb it will still work but with the extra click.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why are there 7 days in a week

A year is the time it takes for the earth to go around the sun. A month is the time it takes for the moon to go around the earth. A day is the time it takes for the earth to rotate once around its axis. But what is the significance of a week and why is this period used and accepted by pretty much every culture on Earth?

[Assistant]
It's cause of one of the earliest civilizations, the babylonians, had 7 days in their week. Eastern cultures (orientals) had 5 and 10 day weeks. Don't know what the native americans had, probably nothing.
The only reason really for having a week-like thing is to regulate days of business and rest periods. This is usually only needed in a city civilization where they have regular markets and celebrations.
Otherwise people would normally just worry about the moon phases for their crops.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: why don't airports have movie theaters?

[Assistant]
Most people don't have a two hour layover or delay. And the relatively few who do, even fewer have them all at the same time, and want to see the same movie. They would never be able to sell even a fraction of their seats.

I feel your pain, though, good luck with the delay!


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why are police departments allowed to withhold body cam footage after officer involved shootings?

[Assistant] A big reason is that releasing a video before a trial can taint the jury pool. It's very easy for the media to constantly play a video and present only one side (usually the victim). This makes a fair trial very difficult.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Hocus Pocus] How were the witches able to survive being burned in the kiln?

At one point in the movie, we see the witches trapped in a walk-in pottery kiln and set ablaze. Then we even see their spirits(?) waft out of the chimney into the sky. The main characters all think the witches are dead and happily go home. But then somehow, their spirits(?) go back down the chimney and we see the witches escape the kiln. How? And if they could escape, why didnt they do that before being burned alive?

[Assistant] Theyre already dead and gone by that point. They're basically just ghosts bound by the black candle to only be on the mortal plane until sunrise. Nothing can harm or kill them except for the new dawn unless they eat the soul of a child.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[LotR] Could Sauron have a change of heart and become good rather than evil?

Sauron has been bumming around Middle Earth for a few thousand years.  In all that time, would it be possible for him to have a change of heart and instead of being the evil Dark Lord could he become a good guy Sauron?

Is his nature defined by outside forces or can he change his ways?

[Assistant]
In the Silmarillion, we're told that he surrendered himself to the Valar after the First Age and repented:

>And some hold that this was not falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West.

But since truly repenting would entail atoning for his deeds and submitting to the judgement of Manwe, his pride would not allow him to do that, so he fled, and eventually returned to evil.

So yes, it's possible that he could have given up on the evil, but it was his own pride and fear of consequences that prevented it.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[The Mummy] I was reading the Imhotep/Anck-su-Namun dossier and I noticed something interesting.

Hi there. So we at The Agency were going over some old case files (I know this particular case came from 1999, but as we say, patience is a virtue) and I noticed a irregularity.

According to the reports a group of explorers and one useless Englishman broke into this pyramid, right, and accidentally bought Imhotep back to life. All standard stuff in The Agency. Then the explorer known only as Burns has his eyes and tongue ripped out my Imhotep. This allows Imhotep to see and speak, as you'd expect. However, what really kings my scorpion is moments before this, my dossier says that Burns loses his glasses (and then steps on them) and has great difficulty seeing. He goes so far as to say "My glasses! I can't see without my glasses". But when Imhotep has his eyes he seems to have no problem seeing.

So my questions are a)how did Imhotep do this. He can just steal eyes and repair damage to them or what? and 2) If he can do this, what does this mean for the field of laser eye surgery.

[Assistant]
Imhotep does not 'steal' the eyes in the form of a transplant. He extracts the necessary organic tissue required for his needs and reconstructs (regenerates) it to his needs.

Otherwise, his entire body would just be an ugly abomination of assorted mismatched parts from assorted people.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What are the functional/physical differences between old gaming cartridges (N64, Sega, etc) and modern Solid State Drives?

Both seem to hold data without any active power and minimal load times, but there was a huge gap in time between cartridge gaming and home computers using SSDs. Is it just a matter of technology miniaturization?

[Assistant]
The most obvious difference is that cartridge memory was read-only, while SSDs are not (you can both read and write to a SSD). Most cartridges also contained a small amount of flash memory (the same kind of memory used in SSDs, although a different actual hardware implementation) for storing e.g. save files, but that was separate from the ROM holding the actual data for the game.

ROMs were also built with the specific hardware of the platform in mind. A modern SSD typically gets read *and the data on it copied into RAM for use*, but ROMs skip this step by directly acting like accessible memory to the hardware. You can think of a ROM as essentially RAM that can't be written to but which can be read as though it's "already loaded".

Flash memory was much, MUCH more expensive at the time, so making a cartridge that used exclusively flash memory would have been cost-prohibitive. Even the chip-based ROM they actually did use was far more expensive than discs, but it had the advantage of not having to be loaded into RAM (which is what caused longer loading times on consoles like the original PlayStation that did use CDs).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Newtons second law of gravity and coulomb's law for electricity are almost the same. Why can electricity attract and repel, while gravity can only attract? Are we confident gravity doesnt repel anywhere in the universe?

[Assistant]
The reason they look so similar is because of geometry. The laws dictate the force (electromagnetic or gravitational) felt by a particle at a particular distance. The particle can be located at any location above, below, or to the side so we can see that there is a sphere of equal potential surrounding the first particle. The force felt then is determined by the force per unit area, or flux.

The area is the surface area of a sphere which grows as (4)(pi)(r^2). The 4 pi is built into the constants in the front, leaving the r^2 on the bottom. This leads to a formula that looks very similar for gravity and electromagnetism. Anything that expands as a sphere falls off with the same r^2 term. For instance the intensity of sound, light, or even the intensity of an explosion all fall of as 1/r^2 .

So why is electromagnetism attractive and repulsive and gravity not? Well, electric charge can be either positive or negative which flips the sign of Coulombs law. In order to make gravity repulsive, you would need a negative mass which we are pretty sure does not exist by our laws of physics. Thus, we are in turn pretty sure that gravity is a purely attractive force.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did Naboo depend so much on exports, where a blockade was an effective measure against them?

Im listening the Darth Plageuis, and theres a discussion about why the blockade is happening.  Forgetting all the politics about it for a moment; but Gunray says, If they dont comply, they can starve

So the tactic of this blockade was to create a food shortage? But what I dont understand, is didnt the People of Naboo have any type of agriculture on this lush, paradise-like planet?  How did they survive, prior to their first contact?

I means its not like were dealing with Tattooine or Hoth.. this planet has vegetation and oceans full of giant fish and even rideable cow like creatures.

[Assistant]
Because of the interplanetary nature of trade, many planets hyper specialized in one or two industries.

Geonisis, for example, had massive factories. Kuat made ships. Tatooine made sand.

There are likely whole planets devoted to only agriculture, bread basket planets that supply multiple other worlds. Coruscant, for example, must have food imported from off planet.

The question is, why does Naboo rely on other planets for food? They clearly have the space to farm, and oceans full of sea life.

The reasonable answer is that, at least on planet, the average citizen of Naboo had a high enough standard of living that they can afford to import food from other planets, and nobody farms, devoting their lives to whatever really interests them.

As such, a blockade of food imports can be devastating to a planet that does not focus on it's own food production.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How does the body get used to running long distances?

[Assistant]
Your body gets stronger and through that it also gets more efficient at using the oxygen you inhale.  As a result your heart doesnt need to pump as much blood throughout your body and you dont need to breath as hard/heavy.

Basically you arent as strained physically due to lack of oxygen, because your body needs less oxygen to do what it needs to.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] So what are the limits of order 66?

I'm thinking more of the long term applications of order 66. How 'hard coded' is it? Did the order only apply for a certain length of time or until it was called off?

Say five years after the war ended an Imperial officer wanted a jedi captured instead of killed. Would the stormtrooper clones under his command disobey the order and kill the jedi then and there? If the officer stood in front of the jedi, would the clones gun him down as well?

Scaling it up, would high ranking clones divert resources and personnel to certain planets if a jedi was suspected to reside there? Would they try and keep it a secret from non clones if it resulted in a better chance of success?

Would a clone try to kill a jedi as soon as possible, even if there was a very low chance of success? Say a lone stormtrooper on patrol recognises a powerful jedi like obi wan, would he take a shot there or call in support to organise an ambush?

If the Empire (miraculously) declared all jedi innocent and encouraged a rebuilding of the order (assuming Vader and palps died in a freak accident) would the clones still be on a rampage until the end of their days?

I know a lot of this can't really be answered definitively, but I thought it would be fun to speculate.

[Assistant]
It's a one time trance state specifically initiated by Palpatine's message in Revenge of the Sith. Afterwards the clones who were brainwashed believed the official story and continued to hunt Jedi while not under the mind control chip's influence, but some clones later realized they had been controlled.

But it wouldn't matter five years later, since  Imperial Officers of that time didn't have clones under their command. The Emperor was dissatisfied with clone troopers because of the individuality the Jedi had taught them, and turned to patriotic recruits to create the faceless army he wanted.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How old is Cancer?

Whats the earliest evidence we have of Cancer existing? What do we know about how and when it evolved? Or has it always existed, as long as life on earth has existed?

[Assistant] Cancer is, in simple terms, cell division gone *really* wrong. New cells are not perfect replicas and their differences don't matter in the short run, but very rarely some change in hamrful ways: they end up dealing damage to the organism by keeping surrounding tissue from functioning properly as the mutated cells keep growing, using ressources, space and so on. So, cancer is just a little younger than multi-cell-based life.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Scp foundation] Given how many world destroying entities the scp contains, why didn't the world end before it existed? And how does it remain secret when it is the size of a major government?

[Assistant]
The world has ended at least once.   One of the items is an otherwise identical world in which all life had died apparently through SCP failure.

Multiuiverse theory being what it is, SCP probably represents one of an infinite string of multiverses.  The ones we receive reports from haven't been destroyed yet.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why are "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear"

May have been asked before but my gf and I were wondering last night. The passenger side mirror has that on it but not the drivers side. Why is that? Why wouldn't they make both mirrors the same as the drivers side?

[Assistant]
Car mirrors with that sticker are deliberately made convex. The word convex means the mirror is not perfectly flat, it actually curves back towards the edges so that it if you put it down on a table mirror side down it would be slightly bowl-shaped.

A convex mirror gives the driver a bigger field of view, because light bounces off the curve differently the farther from center it hits. So instead of the driver seeing just one lane of traffic in the mirror, they can see two lanes wide. This gives the driver more to see when they are deciding to change lanes, etc.

So why the passenger side but not the driver's side? Because the automakers believe that when a driver is looking on the driver's side, the driver needs to estimate distance between the car and other cars accurately, which is much more difficult with a convex mirror. The driver's side mirror is actually more crucial because a driver would have to turn their head far more to check behind without a mirror in a moment of sudden traffic changes, compared to the passenger side. In fact, for a long time there weren't side mirrors on the passenger sides of many cars, and then they added passenger side mirrors to the standard safety requirements.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Eli5: How does a Jake Break work?

[Assistant]
So, you know how an engine works, right? Roughly speaking.

A fuel-air mixture is drawn into the cylinder, compressed, then ignited; the force of the expanding gas as a result of that ignition drives the piston down and imparts energy to the crankshaft.

In a diesel engine, though, even if you let off the gas pedal, the engine will still draw a full charge of air into the cylinders, and that air acts as a spring; because the engine is still turning, it's still compressing the air, and the air then rebounds when the piston falls back down.

What a Jake brake does is it opens the exhaust valve as the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, bleeding some of that air off and robbing the crankshaft of power.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: In movies people often seem to be able to hide from explosions round corners or down holes, is this realistic?

I'd have assumed explosions would essentially fill any gap they find.

[Assistant] The primary force of an explosion is directly outward from the blast point (assuming the charge is not shaped to explode in a specific direction). So the vast majority of the debris and pressure will flow in a direct line away from the explosion. So if you are in a hole, for example, there is a whole lot of dirt between you and the blast point so very little of it will reach you. You won't necessarily be safe from harm but you are far better off than being out in the open.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5:What is the no child left behind act, and why did it garner so much hate towards standardized testing?

Sorry folks, not American. Just thought it was confusing.

[Assistant]
Opponents of the law argue that funding for schools is tied to standardized test scores and schools failing to keep have their funding cut.  Rather than schools paying individual attention students, students are taught to pass the standardized tests and receive little to no educational substance because the teachers are not incentivized to do anything except teach students to pass standardized tests.

Additionally, opponents to the law say that schools with poor performance are in need of more assistance to improve, rather than less and that schools which are well-funded are less in need of additional federal financial aid.  Therefore the law does nothing but further divide the educational gap.

**Edit:** It has been pointed out that funds for schools aren't cut just because of failing scores.  It has been proposed (but not ever put into effect) in some states (Pennsylvania) that budgets are reduced year-to-year that schools do not show marked increase in test scores and performance.  Though funding isn't directly tied to it, schools that routinely fail to perform do face closure.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Is there a particular type of tree that can naturally convert co2 more efficiently than other trees?

which can then be planted in condensed urban environments.

[Assistant]
In general, broadleaf trees (as opposed to needleleaf trees) tend to have higher maximum photosynthetic capacities. If they are not resource limited, they can sequester more carbon.

What is also important to consider is how long carbon will be sequestered from the atmosphere (carbon residence time). Needleleaf trees tend to decompose more slowly due to their nitrogen content and carbon stability in the tree tissues, making them less degradable. They also tend to be longer lived, but it really depends on the environment that the tree is in. The boreal forests (northern latitudes) are dominated by needleleaf trees because it is colder. Most of the carbon is stored in soils because there is less microbial decomposition. In the tropics, there is a lot more primary productivity (growth), and there are no needleleafs in the tropics, but it is warm and rapid nutrient cycling, so much less carbon stored in soils in most locations. There are exceptions... a peat bog was discovered in the Congo and it stores a lot of carbon.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[LOTR] Would rum have been a common product in Middle Earth?

Asking for a friend.

[Assistant] Probably not. Rum is made from sugarcane, a tropical plant, and Middle-earth is pretty temperate. It's possible the drink may exist, brought up from more southern lands, but it's not going to be common.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How do Swiss banks work and how/why are they different from other countries banks?

[Assistant]
Swiss bank works like any other bank account in the world.

But Switzerland is the grandfather of banking secrecy, which means that your information is held to the same standards as medical confidentiality.

>Disclosing client information has been considered a serious social and criminal offense since the early 1900s.

>Many banks in Switzerland offer clients numbered bank accounts, accounts where the identity of the holder is replaced with a multi-digit number known only to the client and select private bankers.

They also do have vaults that aren't subject to regulation.

It's good for offshore banking and is a tax haven.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5 - Why does cold water "feel" so much better than warm/room temperature water when you're thirsty?

Even though I'm not necessarily hot, I'd much rather have a glass of cold water than a glass of room temperature water. Why is that?

Thank you!

[Assistant]
Warm water is more likely to harbour microbes than cold water. Humans who have gottten infected by microbes are more likely to die. It logically follows that humans who prefer cold water would be less likely to die, and their genes, including the one specifying preference for cooler water, would most likely be carried on onto the next generation. Eventually, the gene got carried through the whole population, making preference for cooler water universal throughout the human race.

**tl;dr** Cold water is less likely to harbour potentially harmful microbes, and evolution just took it from there.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why is it that when metal conductors are cooled they have lower resistance? Can you lower resistance by increasing pressure as well?

What is going on at the molecular&/subatomic  levels that makes this possible? Thanks!

[Assistant]
For a metal, reducing the temperature reduces the kinetic energy of the ions in the giant metallic lattice (hence they get colder).

The ions in the lattice are always vibrating, and their vibration is directly proportional their kinetic energy. Therefore, as the temperature lowers the lattice vibrates less.

This means an electron can move through the lattice (a current flowing) more easily, that is to say it's movement will not be impeded by the lattice as much. Therefore more electrons can flow through the lattice, so for the same potential difference the current increases, so the resistance must drop.

*Bare in mind for other conductors, where the free ions are not as a result of metallic bonds  (like semiconductors) decreasing the temperature has the opposite effect - it increases their resistance. This is because the free ions have less energy, so less kinetic energy (in this case the lattice does not vibrate, as covalent bonds join adjacent atoms, usually silicon, rather than metallic bonds), so are less likely to move in the structure.* **Better/correct explanation below.**


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What systems does your university have in place to prevent issues such as advisors not letting students graduate for years on end?

Basically, what systems does your university have to mediate conflicts between advisors and students? For example, many advisors in a country I studied in previously retain students for years on end, when they stop getting their salaries. I know for a fact that most of them could graduate earlier, but the advisors keep piling on more work on them. Unfortunately due to the friendship between some faculty in the department, you cannot go to someone else if theyre a friend of your PI.

What systems does your university have to help graduate students give power to negotiate with the department/faculty?

[Assistant]
In the UK PhD courses are time limited. If you go over 3/4 years the University can lose funding.

We also have a thesis monitoring committee which oversees your progress. They can resolve that sort of conflict.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s, but would anything happen if a land vehicle were to move that fast across Earth's surface?

[Assistant]
It would burn up like a meteor. The density of the atmosphere is too high at the surface.

If we neglect that effect, and also neglect drag, friction, etc. then yes, it would escape the Earth. The funny thing about escape velocity is that *direction doesn't matter* as long as there is no impact against the surface or atmospheric entry.

Assuming your vehicle is moving *exactly* at escape speed, over a small distance it would look like travelling on the surface. But the curvature of the parabola is lower than the curvature of Earth, so after a while it would look like "taking off", then getting higher and higher as it flies into space. If it's moving a little bit faster then the trajectory becomes a hyperbola, but the rest stays the same.