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

[User]
Since protons have mass would 2 protons try to go towards each other, but then repel at a certain (closer) distance because they are both positive?

When exactly does the *repel* happen, and at what distance?

[Assistant]
Because of gravity, you mean?

The gravitational force between two protons at a distance r is F*_g_* = Gm*_p_*^(2)/r^(2).

The electrostatic force between them is F*_e_* = ke^(2)/r^(2).

The ratio of these two forces at any distance is F*_e_*/F*_g_* = ke^(2)/Gm*_p_*^(2) ~ 10^(36). Note that this is a constant, independent of the distance between the protons.

So gravity is totally irrelevant compared to the electrostatic force. There is never a distance where gravity even comes close to overpowering the electric repulsion between them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are even totally lopsided boxing match scores always so close? (Often being decided by only one or two points)

[Assistant]
The judges use what's called the 10-Point Must System.

The guy they decide wins the round gets 10 points. If it's a draw then both guys get 10.

The loser receives 9 points for a close round, 8 points if he was knocked down or generally dominated, and 7 points if he was knocked down twice or mega-dominated.

You can also lose points for a foul, so it's possible to go below 7.

If the fight is *completely* onesided and results in a bunch of 10-7 rounds, it's more likely one guy is getting his ass kicked so hard he'll just get knocked out and you won't even see the points scores, so you only tend to see the scores when they're close matches.


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

[User]
Does the mass of a black hole increase by any appreciable amount by absorbing photons?

We all know that light cannot escape from black holes. Over the course of tens/hundreds/thousands of millions of years, does a black hole absorb so much light that its mass could measurably increase?

[Assistant]
The mass of the black hole will increase by exactly the energy of the light absorbed, divided by c^(2). This is just conservation of energy combined with E=mc^(2) for the black hole.

I did a very VERY rough estimate for the total mass gained by the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way (Sag A*). The combined luminosity of all ~100 billion stars, from ~10 kiloparsecs away on average, shining for 10 billion years, increases the mass of the black hole by one quadrillionth (10^(-15)) of the mass of the Sun. (That's still a quadrillion kilograms, but it's tiny compared to an astrophysically measurable amount of mass.)

Basically, even though the black hole absorbs all the light that hits it, it's so compact that most of the light misses it.


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

[User]
[Firefly] How is it Reavers can operate starships?

Reavers are driven by an insane and homicidal aggression with no regard to anything else. They don't seem to speak any discernible language and only seem to be able to yell and scream wildly. How is it that these men who have been driven utterly mad are able to organize raiding parties and operate weapons and starships?

[Assistant] Reavers are survivors of the ennui drug. They watches their families and friends calm down until it kills them. The idea of calm enrages them. But they are not mindless. They focus entirely on their rage. They know what happened.  The reavers found the alliance scientists who were studying the effects of the drug. As the Bolton's say, a naked man has few secrets but a flayed man has none. Every time they see anything that remotely reminds them of the alliance, whether it is a ship, or a normal town, or even a battle fleet, all they see is their children NOT BOTHERING TO BREATHE. Any reaver who does not keep their hatred and anger up dies. What you see is the 1% of survivors who are able to hate with every fiber of their being. They hate while they eat. They hate while they sleep. And they hate while the perform calculus to plot a course and estimate fuel consumption.


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

[User] [Game of Thrones/ASoIaF] My name is Lancel Lannister. In some bizarre fit of hyper-competence I come back seven minutes later with the breastplate stretcher King Robert wanted. How does the story change?

[Assistant]
Sadly, very little. By that time, Lord Stark has already persuaded the King to not ride in the tourney. Bobby B remains a shouty drunk, he's just a shouty drunk who can fit in his armour. He doesn't wear the armour for his boar hunt, because why would he? So ~~Cersei's plan to have you get him too drunk to survive a face-off with an angry pig~~ the tragic accident happens as normal, war breaks out, and eventually you die a fiery death along with hundreds of others when Cersei blows up the Great Sept.

\*\*\*

Of course, if your hyper-competence continues beyond finding the breastplate stretcher, things have the potential to go very differently.

When Stannis attacks King's Landing, you fight with not just courage but also great skill, cutting down a dozen or more of the enemy as you fight by the Hound's side. When Clegane turns craven, you remain steadfast, joining the Imp in his counterattack - and being credited with leading it, because nobody expects anything of Tyrion. Your deeds merit a suitable reward - immediate knighthood, obviously, and greater responsibility - the promise of a noble title of your own, and a command against the Young Wolf. This will take you away from the capital, and from Cersei's ~~bed~~ influence.

With the Lannister name and constant displays of exceptional competence, you rise high in Lord Tywin's favour. With Jaime missing, you are the natural choice to become his new commander in the Riverlands. A man who can find a breastplate stretcher in under seven minutes can be sure of finding an army of Northmen, bringing them to battle - and putting them to flight.

So now you have Robb Stark as your prisoner, and half his great lords beside. Among them is Roose Bolton, who claims to have been a secret ally of Lord Tywin. But a man as competent as you can tell a snake when it's coiling about his hand, so you are never fool enough to trust him. Instead of sending him back to the North to take power, you make him accompany you to the capital, to swear allegiance to King Joffrey.

Sadly, even a man as brilliantly competent as you cannot make the journey to King's Landing with all your prisoners in time to prevent Joffrey's poisoning, but it is immediately clear to you that the Imp cannot have acted alone. You quickly launch an investigation, determined to root out the conspirators. The Tyrells are smart enough to see the writing on the wall, and flee the city, but you are quick in pursuit, and intercept the murderous Queen Margaery, her fool of a father, and his harridan of a mother before they can reach Highgarden. They are brought back in chains. For regicide there can be only one punishment - death.

Unfortunately, while you were distracted with bringing the real killers to justice, Lord Tywin and Queen Cersei have continued their vendetta against their kinsman, holding a trial by combat while you were on the hunt, and the Imp has murdered his own father before fleeing the city. With the city in chaos and the King a mere child, a new Hand is urgently needed - and there is only one man who has consistently shown himself to have competence above all others, his skills beyond reproach on the battlefield and at the negotiating chamber, wise in judgement, courageous in combat, indefatigable in the pursuit of justice.

And that is how Lancel Lannister, the Hyper-Competent, became one of the youngest ever Hands of the King, before his 17th name day. All because of a breastplate stretcher.


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

[User]
[Tolkien] If Sauron successfully conquered Middle Earth, and Morgoth were to somehow return, would Sauron have fought against his former master?

Seems like a really big case of "there's only room for one Dark Lord in this town" sort of thing.

And even though this isn't Who Would Win, I am curious who you think would have the advantage. I'm not gonna post this there cause there are too many unknowns ( like what form would Morgoth be in, what would Sauron's power post-conquest be, etc. ).

[Assistant]
Sauron might be the most powerful of the Miar, but Morgoth was the most powerful Valar.

I have a feeling Sauron knows his place in the grand scheme of things. Morgoth makes the other Valar uneasy, there's no way Sauron would be able to challange him if he returns.


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

[User] "Space is expanding"; is it also fair to say instead "matter is shrinking"? Is this perspective any different?

[Assistant]
The short answer is no. That wouldn't work.

When space expands, the distance between all points in space increases.

Particles of matter are, themselves, already points, and consequently have no size which could decrease.

If you were to dilate everything so that their sizes decreased, then the distance across a ruler would be unchanging relative to the ruler's distance to a distant object like a galaxy. That's not what we observe. Relative to the length of a ruler, distant objects are getting further away.


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

[User]
Photons of a specific frequency are absorbed by atoms. How precise must that frequency be?

I was taught that certain elements' electrons absorb and emit photons of specific frequencies.  Well, how specific must the frequency be?

Suppose an element X absorbs photons of frequency F.  Would the atom absorb photons of frequency F+1?

Given that atoms are moving / rotating / not actually in one place at one time, how does this absorption even occur?  Wouldn't doppler shift cause the frequency to not ever be _exactly_ F?  Does the photon have to hit directly?

[Assistant] Good question. There will always be a finite width to the absorption lines. This can be caused by the motion of the atom, which will doppler shift the photons a bit. That is generally the largest effect for atomic spectra, but if you could reduce the doppler broadening there would still be a finite width caused by the uncertainty principle, which you can roughly estimate as the Planck constant divided by the lifetime of the excited state.


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

[User]
Is it possible to slow down your day/night rhythm to sleep 14 out of 48 hours instead of 7 out of 24?

Is it possible to slow down your day/night rhythm to, instead of sleeping 7 hours a day, sleep 14 hours every two days? And thus effectively pulling an all-nighter every other night.

I know it is possible to change your rhythm to some extend, for example shift workers have different rhythms than the 7/24 one.

Is your body/brain able to adapt to a rhythm so different from a normal one? Would this have negative effects on you?

[Assistant]
I was in a speleological group (part of CAI, the Italian Alpine Association) many years ago.

Some of the people there did collaborate with experiments that did put people deep inside a cave in isolation for a long period (many months) without clocks. At the end of the period the people did have a very long activity/rest rhythm - much more than 24 hours, but less than 48.

The change was gradual, and obviously the lack of external stimuli did play a very big part in that.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are arguments against sustainable energy?

Why is everything not solar and wind etc? No political nonsense be objective.

[Assistant]
The biggest problem with solar and wind right now is that they can't provide baseload.  If the wind isn't there, or if it's cloudy, there isn't enough electricity.  Factories, houses, businesses, the internet all need a consistent level of energy to function.

As soon as we figure out how to efficiently and cheaply store energy from excess production, wind and solar will become more popular.


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

[User]
Why is the Higgs Boson so important? What are the consequences of discovering such a particle?

I'm reading the Wikipedia entry, and I'm in way over my head. **Edit: thanks for your answers everyone :) **

[Assistant] Imagine you were putting together a puzzle and you pretty much got it all together but there was one piece missing. Obviously since it was one single piece you could tell what the outline looked like, so you knew exactly what you were looking for. Also, the picture was obvious at this point so you could figure out what the actual art on the puzzle piece looked like. You pretty much had every aspect of this puzzle piece nailed down but just couldn't find it, after turning damn near every piece of furniture in the room and every surface EXCEPT under the couch. If you could turn the damn couch over, you could be convinced (just roll with me here, alright?) that the factory just never intended for that piece to be there and there and that this was one fucking weird puzzle. The LHC is a really really expensive machine to turn that couch over... if we don't find the piece there, we're fucked, it never existed.


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

[User]
Why can objects only travel at light speed in a vacuum. Theoretically shouldn't they just be able to accelerate to much higher than that? Photons especially have no weight so why are they limited to 300000 km/s.

I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question.

[Assistant]
There's a common story that as a massive object accelerates closer to the speed of light, it gets heavier and heavier, so applying a constant force accelerates it less and less. This is an antiquated and not particularly helpful way to look at things, based on shoehorning relativistic equations into a Newtonian (i.e., non-relativistic) framework. But the big picture is correct, namely that F=ma no longer applies, and as you apply a force to a massive object, the acceleration caused by that force lessens as the object's velocity approaches the speed of light, such that the speed of light winds up being a limit.

It's a different story for massless particles like photons. The speed of light isn't just a speed limit for photons, it's the *only* speed they can physically travel at (in vacuum).  Within relativity, there's a clear separation between massive particles, which can only travel at speeds strictly less than the speed of light, and massless ones, which can only travel at the speed of light.


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

[User] [Culture] Can citizens of the culture choose to be "upgraded" to mind status and intellect? Can anybody do this or is it reserved for selected individuals?

[Assistant]
Theoretically, yes, for a given value of close enough. But it's horribly gauche - you'll change so much your base "you" is lost, there's no going back.

Why lose a human to gain something that's not quite a Mind?


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

[User]
Can someone explain to me how the stock market works? (LI5)

I have a decent general knowledge but economics is my big weak point. I'd really like to learn more. What forces cause the stock market to move up or down?

[Assistant]
Your lemonade stand decides to go public, so you take its worth, divide it into a certain amount of stocks and then start selling them to people. (1 billion, 1 billion stocks so 1 stock = $1).

When you do well people want your stocks, so they buy them, but people that already own it want more money, so they sell for higher then $1, stock price goes up. Reverse happens when you do badly, people don't like your company so they sell, market gets flooded and stock goes down.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was Luke's light saber crystal synthetic?

If so, how does he learn to make them? Why is it green instead of red? Or did he find a natural crystal?

[Assistant]
In Legends,  it was. We do not know about it in canon, but there's nothing in canon that indicates that the crystals can be made synthetically.

In fact, given that the same type of crystals are used to power the Death Star superlaser and the Empire is displacing civilians in order to access and mine out the crystals necessary for constructing the DS, it's rather lokely they can't be made synthetically, at least not up to the size the DS requires.


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

[User]
[DC] How would Batman react to supervillains being given the death penalty?

Would he try stopping the authorities from legally executing them?

[Assistant] Batman is not averse to the Death Penalty. He just wants to make sure everything happens according to the law - including taking villains away from law enforcement custody if said law enforcement tries unlawfully killing them. IIRC he even saved the Joker from the death penalty at one point because despite the Joker being responsible for all sorts of carnage, he actually wasn't guilty of what the Gotham courts tried him for.


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

[User]
I see plenty of posts about people always trying to paint themselves as a victim, but what is it called when someone is always trying to paint YOU as a victim?

This got deleted on first attempt so I guess I won't add any accompanying detail, see if it doesn't get flagged, then clarify my question in the comments if needed.

EDIT: Seems okay, so to add detail: I have a friend who will never miss an opportunity to pity me, even when there's really no cause. In reality I'm perfectly fine and doing quite well, but she will invent things to feel sorry for me for, or twist what I'm saying/ focus on minute details/anything that can give her a chance to "support" me or "unpack" what it is I'm feeling here. Overall a lot of armchair psychology. It feels like it's maybe a way to elevate her status above mine or lead me to doubt my happiness, and I've tried to find out if this is common or if there's a term for this kind of behaviour, but all I come across is information about people who play the victim themselves, not who
paint it onto others. So yes, my question is does this
behaviour have a name or something I could search to
find out more?

[Assistant]
They might have an inflated opinion on their abilities to psychoanalyze you.

Sometimes this occurs in armchair psychology.   Or intro students.

It's because the concepts you learn at this level are very simplified and many seem intuitive.
It makes people believe they understand human psyche at a level that they don't. They tend to diagnose everyone.


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

[User]
Eli5: Can you live with cancer and never detect it?

My grandpa passed away some months ago on his sleep, an otherwise healthy 98 y.o. When we spoke to the doctor he told us that he found significant evidence for prostate cancer, it had probably went unnoticed for decades. Can you live your whole life with some form of cancer without ever even noticing it?
According to this Doctor he says that if one looks closely enough we all develop cancer at some point of our lives.

[Assistant] Yeah, you've actually brought up a good example. Prostate cancer is one of those cancers that can be detected in up to 80% of elderly men after they die but never actually cause any problems when they are alive to affect them meaningfully. Or, sometimes cancers can be detected quite late and never cause any big issues, but then one day it hits a vital artery or organ and you suddenly deteriorate. There's also cancers that can spontaneously regress as your body fights them since cancers can make the immune system attack them.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we not just finish the war with North Korea?

Given the following:
- how incredibly poor the government treats its people
- the abject poverty that many live in
- the "labor" camps that really resemble concentration camps
- North Korea's nuclear testing

I don't undestand why we have let the government of this country exist for as long as it has.  Obviously, now with them having nuclear weapons, its hard to invade.  But why did it ever even get to this point?  We have a larger military, a far more technologically advanced military, and most of the international community on our side.

[Assistant]
> We have a larger military, a far more technologically advanced military, and most of the international community on our side.

Lets break this down

* We have a larger military

We have 1.5 Million active personnel, 850K in reserve. We are number 2 behind China.

The DPRK has 1.1 Million active, and 8.2 Million reserve - they have a *massive* conscription base. They outpower us as far as raw bodies go, and they have significant military technology  - they're fighting with modern AK's, tanks, and artillery. It may not be equivalent, but its not like they are fighting with sticks and stones.

* Technologically advanced

this may be true, but that doesn't count for that much of a margin. You can have the most advanced rifle in the world, if someone beats you over the head with a lead pipe before you pull the trigger, you're still dead.

The DPRK is dug in - they have been preparing for years for any form of war, land, air, or sea. They likely have significant defenses, including those designed to deal with potential nuclear strike. And they likely have at least a few last-ditch 'fuck you' emplacements so that even if you turned the whole country to ash, they could still launch a few strikes at nearby targets (e.g. Seoul).

* the international community

After Iraq and Afghanistan we are all out of international support. President Obama might have made some progress in this respect, but there is no way that anyone, not even our closest allies, would back us up as far as an attack on North Korea. It would be long, drawn out, bloody, and with lots of collateral damage. The Chinese would be pissed the fuck off as well, and there's no point in doing that from a economic standpoint.

Fundamentally, as I've noted every time this question has come up, beyond saber rattling and being assholes, the north koreans haven't done anything to the US. They've sparred with South Korea, and their human rights record sucks, but so do a lot of countries, and we still don't bother them even when they are assholes.

Unless NK does something more than posturing, no one is going to touch them. It's like a hornets nest covered in napalm and MRSA-infected AIDS. No one wants to set that fucker off.


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

[User]
What would happen if Turkey joined the European Union?

Of course, this is only under the assumption that the other countries would accept them. How would their economy change? Would it be beneficial for them or should they just avoid it all together?

[Assistant]
I have one national security related comment. If Turkey joins the EU, that means that the EU will share a border with Iran, Iraq, and Syria - borders known not to be very secure. All EU member states are required to eventually join the "Schengen area" where there are no internal border controls (unless an exemption is granted like UK & Ireland received). That means if you are able to get across the border into Turkey, you will face no more border checks or customs in the EU, and will have a clear path to Germany, France, or Spain, for example.

That, plus the fact that Turkey is 99.8% Muslim, is why Turkey may never be allowed into the EU, which is an answer to a slightly different question than you asked.


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

[User] ELI5: How is physical money converted to digital money ?

[Assistant]
You give the bank some money, say, a 50 US dollar bill.

The bank then, in return, writes down that they owe you 50 dollars. You can ask the bank for your 50 dollars back (At say, an ATM).

You can also tell the bank that you transferred your debt, or part of it, to someone else.

Let's say you want to buy something at an online store for 25 of the 50 dollars. You tell the bank that the store now owns 25 dollars of the debt the bank had to you, they will write down that they now owe 25 dollars to the store, and 25 to you.

The store can then go to the bank, and ask them for the 25 dollars in physical money.

You might also notice that this way, there are actually 100 dollars in the economy after you deposited the money, the bank owns 50 physical dollars, and you own 50 dollars worth of debt from the bank, there are 50 physical dollars, and 50 digital dollars.
The money was never 'converted' to digital money, the bank simply keeps track of to whom they owe money (And who owes money to them). This debt is much easier to transfer since the bank only has to write down who they owe money to, instead of having to go to everyone and hand them the money, this also means it's much faster for transactions over a large distance, and safer for large transactions, since there is no chance the money gets stolen during travel.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why is Peter Parker not persecuted under the Sokovia Accords?

Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place after Civil War, so the Sokovia Accords would be in effect. Why is Peter Parker not charged for his unauthorized heroics in DC and New York?

[Assistant]
The Sokovia Accords only deal with powered individuals acting internationally. It's essentially designed to stop powered individuals from sparking the next nuclear arms race; all of the member nations of the UN promised not to send their supers into another country without UN approval.

What happens within a nation's own borders is entirely up to that nation. When SHIELD acts internationally, they're governed by the Accords. When they act in New York, they're governed by the laws of the United States.

The same is true for Peter Parker. If he goes up to Canada, the Accords take effect, but as long as he stays in Brooklyn, he only has to worry about the laws in effect in New York City.

Now, some of what Peter does is still technically illegal, but the authorities in the MCU (and the 616 comics universe, up until their own Civil War), are for the most part content to look the other way.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why did it take 1 year to construct the Empire State Building in 1930 but 7 years to construct One World Trade Center in modern times?

Shouldn't modern technology speed up the construction process?

[Assistant] Modern technology and construction processes are more complex which takes more time. They also come with more safety regulations both in construction and in what workers are allowed to do. The Empire State Building was also much smaller.


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

[User] What did Voltaire mean when he said "I have no morals - and yet I'm a very moral person"?

[Assistant]
That dogma is not necessary for moral behavior.

People are happier living in a society where others help them rather than hurt them. So you don't need a set of specific moral rules to decide to act in a moral fashion, it's just the logical thing to do.


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

[User] At what time of day do most felony crimes exist around the world, and why?

[Assistant]
I previously worked for a major US police department in crime statistical analysis.

Most felonious crimes happen between 2PM and midnight-ish, with higher numbers on Friday and Saturday, although it depends on the area.

I couldn't tell you why in a way that would meet the standards of the sub.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we have to pay for cable/satellite/fiber optic TV each month, when all the shows still present ads?

[Assistant]
The bill you pay every month is for the infrastructure to deliver the cable single to your house.

The commercials are to pay for the actual programs that you watch.

It's like asking why you have to pay for a train ticket just to visit another city when you just have to pay for all the stuff you do in that city.


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

[User]
Could a building be so large that the engineers have to take into account the curvature of the earth?

Stadiums, airports, and convention centers are huge. They seem to have a single, large, concrete foundation. Does the curvature of the earth come into play? Could a building, even in theory, be affected by the earth's shape? Are there any currently in existence, planned, or theorized?

[Assistant] Well the earth is 8k miles diameter. Your horizon is 3-5 miles at normal height. So if it takes 5 miles to drop 6 feet then you are dropping 1 inch every 400 feet or so. So across a football stadium the curvature of the earth is about 2 inches tops. Whereas local variations in height of sea level would generally be a bigger factor. Even if a building were constructed that was a mile wide it would only have to clear about 15 inches more earth on on side relative to the other. Which again would still be almost zero relative to just normal changes in sea level over the same span.


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

[User] [MCU] Asgardians clearly don't need to breathe even in space, so why do they breath anyway?

[Assistant] We don't know that they don't need to breathe. We know they can last a very long time without breathing but we've seen nothing that suggests they'd survive in space for a long time. Thor is maybe the exception but A, we've no idea how long Thor was exposed and B, Thor is likely leaps and bounds more durable then most Asgardians.


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

[User]
ELI5: The student loan debt crisis/bubble if there is one and if I should be worried

I hear a lot about how student loan debt is forming a huge bubble of loans that were given which can't be paid back. People keep comparing this to the mortgage bubble that caused the recession in 2008.

As a college CompSci student right now, is this something to worry about?

[Assistant]
A large portion of a generation are accumulating large amounts of debt that are comparable to mortgages. This is due to federally backed loans, meaning most people who want to go to school can get a loan and go.

This in turn creates a higher demand for education which then increases the price of said education over the years. Also, this creates a saturated job market. The degree which you took the loan out for is no longer a guarantee to get you your preferred job because there are others like you that did the same thing. This has two effects; the first is that there are a lot of people that are now under-employed, and the second is that the person who got the job they wanted is getting a lower wage than the profession used to pay as the business hiring employees has many options from the high demand.

Now what you are left with are underemployed or unemployed people with an expensive degree which they now have no use for, and people who are using their degree, but still can't make enough to live a normal life. These people either delay or forego purchasing homes, getting married, starting families, buy the new hot gadgett, etc...

It's not so much a bubble as they cannot get rid of the loans. They are with them for life if they can't pay them off. But imagine what this would do to the economy when you have this generation that can't consume as the previous generations did. It can potentially become stagnant as a large portion of their money goes towards paying off their loans and are also having fewer kids to help bolster the next generation.

It's a bad situation.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do people "feel" a storm or rain coming in, in an area where they have broken a bone or had surgery? Myself included.

[Assistant] Barometric pressure effects all of our internal bits as well.  When pressure changes some people get sinus pain due to the pressure change in their heads which can cause headaches.  This works the same for joints that may already be inflamed due to arthritis.  Scar tissue also behaves differently than regular tissue, it is often not as malleable.  So a pressure change in an area where tissue has been damaged might cause minor swelling where the tissue isn't as forgiving.


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

[User]
Did the rocket boosters used prior to The Challenger have the same O-ring Problem that the right rocket booster had in the Challenger launch?

Ive read the famous account of the engineer not wanting the Challenger to launch due to the malfunction. But was this problem present in the rockets used before Challenger?

Thank you.

[Assistant] Technically yes it was present but the reason why it wasnt a problem up until then is because of the circumstances of the challenger launch.  Primarily because the o-rings had been comprised due to the cold weather before the launch.


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

[User]
[MCU] How many planets did Thanos destroyed/conquered/invaded successfully?

I only know that Earth was his last planet to destroy before the "time travel" and Captain Marvel said that there are only a few planets that could help an alien invasion like Thanos that's why she was roaming around planets. Hypothetically how many planets could Thanos have destroyed?

[Assistant]
We dont have a number but given how well various species know him - the Xandarians know about him and he has major alliances with Ronan and the Chutari. Plus he seems to recruit followers from childhood given we have Gamora and Nebula.

I would say that he has been doing this for several decades at least.


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

[User]
If someone wanted to improve their thinking, why should they study philosophy and not just learn logic and critical thinking?

I've never studied philosophy (e.g. read the works of Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Descartes etc. except for a few passages or quotes online) but I have read and studied a lot of intro to logic and critical thinking textbooks

If someone wanted to improve their thinking, why should they study philosophy and not just learn logic and critical thinking?

PS: I think the reason I've hesitated reading the works of philosophers in the past is that I'm put off by old styles of language e.g. Shakespeare, however, if the works of these philosophers were written or updated into modern English I'd be more inclined

EDIT: I would be most interested in a branch of philosophy that specifically focuses on how ought one think/reason. That may simply be formal and informal logic, potentially some epistemology too. I'm interested in both the theory and practice. I'm not interested in ethics, politics, aesthetics, axiology, etc.

[Assistant] I mean the first thing that comes to mind is that logic and critical thinking *are* philosophy. But also, if youre not interested in the earlier western philosophers you mentioned, does that preclude you from reading more modern philosophers? Not all philosophy is from that era! Try something new and readable to you. Engaging with other ideas is beneficial to your own thinking.


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

[User] [The Purge]What is the life expectancy of someone with a low level management/supervisory position in the Purge Universe? How does the Purge effect employee-employer relations more broadly?

[Assistant]
You can't tell life expectancy just by job. It depends on a lot of things.

1.) Are they poor? Purgers tend to target the poor often.

2.) If they have money, are they spending it on defense systems? Hiring guards? Buying Sandin security systems?

There are many other factor at play as to whether one would survive the purge, but it gets real complicated real fast.

As for employer-employee relations, have you ever heard the phrase "an armed society is a polite society"? Well a society where you can murder anyone one day of the year is the politest society you will ever find. Bosses tend to be nice to their employees, even if corporate policy is unfair and exploitative. This is for a reason. Corporations themselves can hire mercenaries and get advanced security systems to protect themselves. Their employees can't. If you're a boss, you better be nice to your employees. Otherwise, since they can't go after the company purge night, they'll go after the boss.


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

[User] [MCU] Couldn't Thanos just wipe out half of the universe's population with reality stone? After all, reality stone has the power to change reality itself?

[Assistant] The mind stone to conceive it. The reality stone to enact it. The power stone to make it permanent. The space and time stones to do it simultaneously throughout the universe. The soul to locate and house the snapped individuals.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What if Daredevil was bit by the Spider?

In this alternate universe, Matt  was the one bit by the Spider instead of Peter. What would change? He is still blind and has his other powers.

[Assistant] He would likely have a very powerful Spider-Sense, at least on par with Kaine's, if not more powerful where he could literally see the future. At the same time though, Matt is not a scientist, which means no web shooters, which could make him a less effective Spider-Man.


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

[User]
[Spider-man: general] Since there are some versions of Peter (or other spider-men) that need to use gadget webshooters instead of having that in their biology, have they ever gotten their powers and decided not to use webshooters?

Like I mean he already would have wall clinging, super strength, spidey sense, etc. So has he or any other version of spiderman just not used webs?

[Assistant]
Not Peter but in a universe where Flash Thompson was Spider-Man he didn't have web shooters because he wasn't smart enough to build them.

Miles didn't use web shooters until S.H.I.E.L.D gifted him some.


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

[User]
What are the factors that affext the fundamental frequency of a wine glass?

In a wine glass, how would the length of the water in the glass (height) affect the fundamental frequency. Also would the thickness on the glass rim affect the fundamental  frequency also.

[Assistant]
The fundamental frequency of a wine glass is dominated by standing waves in the cylindrical part of the wall.  The bell of the glass flexes in and out, kind of like its being squeezed and unsqueezed repeatedly.  Adding water causes the vibration to be stopped below the water level, so the cylinder becomes shorter relative to its width, which raises the frequency.  Thickening the walls does the same.

If you cut out any section of the glass in the bell as viewed from the side, it will look like a vertical sliver.  It vibrates kind of like a ruler or a door stop.  Making the sliver shorter or wider will make it less flexible, so it will vibrate faster.

I hope this isn't a homework problem.


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

[User]
[MCU Black Panther] Does W'Kabi regret throwing away his marriage, his respected place in Wakandan society and his lifelong best friend?

It seems that W'Kabi really lost a lot by choosing Killmonger's side.

He's been replaced by M'Baku in the Court, his wife chose the king over him, his best friend probably isn't his best friend anymore, members of his tribe have undoubtedly been killed in the final battle and his tribe has likely lost their entire purpose (if not dissolved entirely).

This is all assuming that he *isn't* imprisoned or exiled.

All because he was mad at T'Challa for not capturing/killing Klaue (something that was Killmonger's fault).

Now that things have cooled down, does he regret his choice?

[Assistant]
Klaue wasn't the real reason that W'Kabi betrayed TChalla. If you really pay attention during the movie, you'll notice that a pervasive underlying theme is that the worst monsters are the ones that you make yourself. Wakanda is a bit of a house of cards propped up by lies, shameful past events swept under the rug, and no shortage of hypocrisy. It is not the homogeneous utopia that it seems to be on the surface. N'Jadaka/Erik is the walking embodiment of all of Wakanda's hidden shame and its mistakes, brought to light.

In the beginning of the movie, W'Kabi hints to T'Challa that he would like Wakanda to be more imperialistic in its pursuits. The stage was already set for Kilmonger to awaken already existing attitudes in Wakanda. Isolation had poisoned Wakanda's view of the outside world. T'Challa recognized this and sought to have Wakanda join the world as a symbol of hope. W'Kabi was one of the minds who had been poisoned against the world and sympathized with Kilmonger's strategy of controlling the world through fear and hate.


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

[User]
ELI5 : If we die after roughly 3 weeks without eating, why do eat 3 times a day?

I know you wouldn't spend 3 weeks very wealthy or you would lack energy, but still, it seems it's some sort of waste.

[Assistant]
Eating three times a day is actually a modern invention (modern in terms of human history as a species). It wasnt uncommon, or even unhealthy to eat once a day, or sometimes skip a day every few days. It still isnt unhealthy to do that today, you are just so used to eating three times a day that it would be difficult.

We die after 3 weeks of not eating because we are healthy and well nourished. If you ate rarely and were malnourished you would die much quicker. We eat daily to make sure we are in top health.


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

[User] [1989 Batman] Why can't/doesn't Batman turn his head?

[Assistant]
I think the 4th wall answer than his Batsuit was simply designed with a non-pivotal neck is also the in-universe answer.

As to why Batman would wear a Batsuit that negated neck movements, maybe he did a cost/benefit analysis and determined it was more beneficial to have the movement restrictive armored material run uninterrupted over his neck to head, rather than compromise the safety of his neck and the batsuit as whole by having a break with another piece of other materials.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can airlines like RyanAir in Europe offer 15 pound international flights, when in the US it costs me $150 to fly to the next state over?

I see people flying all over Europe for 10 and 20 pound/euro flights, but for me to fly from Little Rock, AR to Kansas City costs $150 each way.  Why is it so much cheaper to fly around Europe?

[Assistant]
Look up Spirit Airlines in the States. $7 flights one way. Plus airport fees it comes to about $30, but the airline fee is cheep.

Multitudinous restrictions apply. You'll be nickel-and-dimed for everything. Read the fine print.


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

[User]
Did humans and fish came from the same biological organism (like the saying "we all come from the sea") or is it possible that life developed independently in the oceans and on land?

P.s.- sorry if I messed up some of the "terms" I'm no expert.

[Assistant] All life on earth is hypothesized to share a common ancestor, known as LUCA, last universal common ancestor. Basically, if you go back far enough on the phylogenetic tree of life, all organisms share common ancestry. Because fish arent mammals, the most recent common ancestor between humans and fish is probably still pretty far back.


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

[User]
[STAR WARS/Alien] A Facehugger attaches it self to a Jedi/Sith, would the Alien exhibit any Force sensitivity/powers?

would we have a Zoanthrope(WH 4K) on our hands or would the results be a lot less interesting?

[Assistant]
The Force flows through all life forms. But, to feel it, to tap into it, requires... a certain level of thought.

Now, some animals can sense The Force, and areas where it is strong, like a bloodhound can track a scent. It is possible a Xenomorph born from someone strong in The Force would have this kind of sensitivity, to aid in the hunting of further Force adepts. But to truly master The Force requires meditation, training, and understanding.

At best (or worst), the Xenomorph would feel The Force, and it would flow through it, granting it the ability to sense emotions, to feel the presence of other life forms, even some measure of precognition and incredible physical speed and skill. But beyond that, the creatures have shown no aptitude or desire for understanding, and so could not learn the true secrets of The Force.


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

[User]
[Super Heroes General] How easy is it to gain super powers?

In most universes with super heroes there is all kinds of people running around with super powers. So how easy is it to get powers in universes such as Marvel, DC, Valiant, and so on? What universe is the easiest to get powers in? And what are some of the easiest ways to get powers in these universes in general?

[Assistant]
In Marvel, the vast majority of them are born with it, typically with an active mutant gene, or a dormant mutate gene that is woken up. Everything else is either magic, given by some sort of aspect entity, or... very rarely... human-derived (like Captian America).

In DC comics, most heroes with "super-powers" aren't human. Taking Justice League as an example, only the Flash is an augmented human. Everyone else is either a different species, or their power is tech-based.


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

[User]
[WH40K] So there's some 9 ft. tall Jehova's Witness at my door - how can I get him to go away?

Hi reddit,

I live on a small island by myself and try not to mingle with people much. Yesterday however, I looked out my cottage window and saw some kind of floating castle spaceship.

Some odd fellows popped down and told me if I've heard of the God Emperor. Well. I don't much pay attention to religion, so I asked which one. The Jewish God, Islamic God, or Christian God, or any number of gods that we on Earth worship. I was also mindful to remind them that some people here and on Earth don't even think there's a god at all!

They got awful stroppy and went back to their ship, telling me we'll be hearing from them soon. Did I say something to upset them? How will they act on this?

**TL;DR** What would the Imperium of Man do when confronting a pre-spaceflight, multi-cultural planet that has a wide array of religious beliefs?

[Assistant] First, they send the missionaries. If the missionaries fail, they send the Ecclesiarchy. If the Ecclesiarchy has deemed the task of converting you is wasted effort, they send the Guard. When you retaliate against the guard, one single drop pod with 5 Space Marines inside smashed into the surface of your world and they slaughter you.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Has technology peaked? It seems barely to have advanced in over 4000 years.

The droids are just as intelligent, the ships travel at the same speed, lightsabers, blasters, and bowcasters have never gone out of style...

Seemingly the only change is that the government in power occasionally decides to build a bigger weapon. Not a better one, just a bigger one.

[Assistant] Technological advances are still made, quite often, in fact. Across the Galaxy, there are scientists everywhere, and they're all working on something. New medicines are being researched. New droids are always being developed with higher clock speeds, more storage, better power consumption and so on. Ships also get incrementally faster, new navigation methods are developed. The only way a rational being could look at the scientific advances in our Galaxy and think of stagnation would be if they came from a world developing so quickly as to go from beasts of burden to spaceflight in half a century.


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

[User]
[American Psycho] Did Patrick Bateman really kill people?

Or was it just something that he made up?

[Assistant]
Part of the main points of the culture at the time is that everyone only cares about themselves. This is shown by everyone cheating on everyone, no one learning each others names, and a bunch of other behaviors. It is entirely possible that he did actually kill all of those people and everyone that knew didn't care because it would cause more trouble for themselves.

The lawyer: What does he have to gain from turning Bateman in? It's believable that he is just playing dumb in the restaurant not to build up a fuss.

The realtor: She doesn't care about the bodies at all. She just hired a person to clean up the place. If the news about the murders got out, the property price would plummet. Price plummets and she looses out on a fortune made off of the commission made from selling Paul Allen's apartment (which is nicer then Bateman's). She knows who he is when he returns to the scene of the crime and that's why she tells him "you should probably just leave"

The thing is, in the movie, everyone is an asshole looking out for their own self interest. At least Bateman tries to be normal.


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

[User]
[MCU Civil War] Does Tony now have the Pym Particle?

Lang was arrested and his suit presumably confiscated. What'd they do with that tech?

[Assistant]
Having the particles is trivial. Being able to manufacture them is a whole other thing, and something that his dad never cracked.

Whether or not Tony is trying is an open question, really. The last guy who managed it had to spend years and years and years working with the actual resources left over by the inventor before he cracked it, and then his entire research building got imploded and the one supply he had made was destroyed in a child's bedroom, so...


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

[User]
If the earth was to stop rotating around its axes; how cold would the dark side get ?

and how would the weather patterns change?

[Assistant]
Planets that "have stopped rotating" are known as being tidally locked.  Earth's moon is tidally locked to the Earth, and so only one side faces us at all times.  If a planet is close enough to its parent star it will become tidally locked.  Observation of exoplanets determined to be tidally locked indicated extreme winds between day and night sides.

HD 189733 b is a roughly Jupiter sized exoplanet which exhibits this phenomenon.  A temperature range of 973  33 K to 1,212  11 K was discovered, indicating that the absorbed energy from the parent star is distributed fairly evenly through the planet's atmosphere.  Assuming the planet is tidally locked, this suggests that powerful easterly winds moving at more than 9,600 kilometers per hour are responsible for redistributing the heat.

If something similar were to happen on Earth, we would all die very quickly.  All crops and plants would quickly succumb to temperature variations of hundred of degrees Kelvin, the winds would rip out the largest trees.  The entire ecosystem would most likely be destroyed.  Significant quantities of water would boil into the atmosphere.  If the heated atmosphere from the day side were incapable of keeping the night side warmed,  theoretically the boiled off oceans could be transported to the night side where the water would be deposited and frozen.

edit: We wouldn't *all* die, the crew of the ISS would be quite comfortable until their return to Earth.


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

[User]
Do environmental factors play a role in human facial development?

Is the shape of the face and jaw determined entirely by genetics, or do environmental factors influence development?

Examples

Eating soft foods vs eating tough, chewy foods.

Resting tongue position.

Breast feeding vs bottle feeding.

[Assistant] So, almost every human trait has some kind of environmental as well as genetic components. While face shape is mostly genetic, things like how a baby passes through the birth canal or some prenatal environmental factors can definitely have an effect, especially if we are looking at things such as significant facial deformities.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is HO harmless, but HO(hydrogen peroxide) very lethal? How does the addition of a single oxygen atom bring such a huge change?

[Assistant]
Because a single oxygen atom is very dangerous in and of itself. Oxygen is very reactive and it *hates* being alone. Whenever it is by itself, it looks for the nearest thing it can attach to and attaches to it.

The oxygen in water is very cozy. It has two Hydrogen buddies that give it all the attention it wants and it has no desire to go anywhere else.

The oxygen in peroxide is different. This is a case of *three's company, four's a crowd.* The hydrogen-oxygen bonds here are quite weaker. Two Hydrogen can keep the attention of a single Oxygen just fine, but they can't keep the attention of two very well. The relationship is unstable and the slightest disturbance - shaking, light, looking at it wrong - causes one of those Oxygen to get bored and look for a better situation. If that situation happens to be inside your body then that can do bad things. The atoms of your body don't particularly like being ripped apart by oxygen atoms. Well, the atoms don't care, but the tissue, organs, and systems that are made of atoms don't like it.

EDIT:

As u/
breckenridgeback pointed out, it is more so the oxygen-oxygen bond that is the weak link here (the structure of H2O2 is, roughly: H-O-O-H). This would leave H-O and O-H when it broke apart but this itself isn't stable. If H2O2 is left to decompose by itself one of those H's will swap over to form H2O and the free O will combine with another free O to form O2.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Can anyone explain Vader's huge shift in personality as he fell to the Dark Side?

I get it, the Dark Side twists you to your very core. But is that all there is to Darth Vader's twisted personality? He's a true, wicked monster and he seems to be rather proud of that fact.

Anakin fell because he wanted to help all the people around him, and felt the power granted by being a Jedi wasn't enough to do this. Why would he suddenly go from having a bit of a Messiah complex to being a complete monster bent on killing all in his way?

[Assistant]
Because he had a *really* rough week.

The finale of the Clone Wars was a roller coaster from hell.  Wife's pregnant, wife's gonna die in childbirth, Yoda says fuck off, Chancellor says I'll help, Council says fuck you, Obi-Wan says spy on your politician buddy, politician buddy turns out to be Seriously Bad Bad Guy of Badness who just so happens to know of a way to cheat death, Bad Motherfucker says thanks for telling us, but fuck you and your wife, Anakin goes and pariahs himself by maiming Bad Motherfucker and maybe skewering a few babies in the quest to gain power, ends up really drunk off said power and assumes his wife and his best friend are together, Anakin experiments with erotic asphyxiation, best friend doesn't take too kindly to that, and turns Anakin into a naked s'more.

But he went through all this to try and protect his wife, only to find in the end that it was his own fault that she died.  And after that, anybody would be broken.  Anybody would consider themselves a complete monster.  By the time you see Vader in his prime, he's simply accepted that.


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

[User] ELI5: Real estate: Why would you build studios when you could build small one bedrooms and sell them for more?

[Assistant]
There's people who either can't afford or don't want to spend the extra money on a 1BR.  This means that there's a *demand* for a product from people who would never be customers in the 1BR market.

You can also pack more studios into the same space.  You might be able pack 5x $1000 studios into the space of 4x one bedrooms which only rent for $1200 - that's $200 more for the studios.


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

[User] ELI5 What was considered "junk food" in ancient times?

[Assistant]
Garum was added to dishes in Roman food to make it a bit more tasty, it's essentially fish guts and salt mixed in a brine. It still had some good nutritional value, but mainly was added for the flavour, similarly to how we'd use condiments today.

But there's not much we'd consider junk food today, but there were delicacies that had a similar effect of excitement, a rare treat on special occasions. Fresh fruit was expensive in many areas in antiquity, as it didn't store well so it was hard to transfer and Farmers preferred foods with long term and multiple usages (grains, olives, with grapes being the exception, but those were primarily used for wine and a necessity often due to the state of the drinking water.)

Meat from larger animals was expensive and a really extensive process was required before you were allowed to eat it (giving it up the gods, enduring the animal was pure, etc.) Sea food really depended on where and what with no directly reasonable pattern for differences in what the poor ate and what the wealthy did.

As empires were built, rare meats and such from other territories could be brought in for the wealthy.


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

[User] [X-men] Why did Professor X choose a douche like cyclops to lead the X-men?

[Assistant]
Anyone who enforces the rules is going to come off as a douche sometimes.

In most incarnations, Cyclops only comes off bad because he's reining in the popular bad boy Wolverine.  But, Wolverine really is shit at being a team player, hits on Jean even though he knows Jean is already dating Scotty, and otherwise hurts the team by showboating around like the rules dont apply to him.

Apparently Cyclops goes through a bigger asshole phase in the comics where he's just legitimately a bad person, but that starts years after Professor X already chose him as the leader.


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

[User] [DC] Would Superman break someone out of prison if he knew they were innocent?

[Assistant]
No. He'd try to get evidence proving their innocence.

Superman believes in the proper course of justice. He will not pervert it simply on his own whims. Partially because he is a legal authority in Metropolis (or was pre-Nu52. One of the old mayors deputized him so that he could arrest Luthor.) and partially because he knows that if he started to shrug off the law, the government would view him, and other capes, as threats.


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

[User]
[Watchmen] Couldn't the US Gov (or the Ruskies for that matter) make another Dr. Manhattan?

It's not like he was created by magic or anything, he's the result of a well-known set of circumstances. Couldn't they repeat the experiment over and over again? Even if they get a 1% chance of succcess it might be worth it.

[Assistant] Jon Osterman was a brilliant scientist, someone who had grown up observing his father work with intricate machinery, and someone who had plenty to cling to life for. That's already gonna be a pretty rare set of circumstances, now consider how many people that fit all those criteria are going to want to volunteer for what he'd been through. And while you're at it, consider what might happen if you try to force someone who didn't volunteer to do that? You really wanna create a demigod who's pissed at you for ripping their body apart atom by atom?


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

[User]
Research outside of an institution?

I'm incredibly interested in doing research, but I'm struggling to find a funded programme on the topic I want to do. I simply cannot afford to pay my way through a PhD programme.

If I were to do some research and write a paper at home, could I submit it to a journal? Would I be taken seriously?

I have a first class honours degree in computer science, and I've spent an awful lot of time since I completed that degree learning more about my chosen field and the topic I'm interested in - I just don't really know where to go from here. Any advice would be appreciated!

[Assistant]
There is nothing stopping you - technically - from submitting research for peer review outside of an institution.

However...

And it's a big however; a large part of the PhD process is learning how to conduct research, how to present it, and how to operate as an independant researcher. And that's besides the dedicated time becoming a true expert in the field, with the related dicsussions and interaction with peers that that requires.


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

[User]
[DC/Marvel] So why should I follow lab safety?

It seems that every other hapless researcher that 'accidentally' gets blasted by gamma rays or hit by mutated lightning gets superpowers.

So why should I be safe in the lab? Worst case scenario I get an alternate personality with anger issues.

[Assistant]
Only people with latent mutant genes, if they are very lucky, have their powers awoken by dangerous environmental factors like radiation, lightning and toxic chemicals. Everyone else gets the more traditional cancer, toxin poisoning, or third degree burns.

The Leader provided us with the most clear example of this when he wanted to get a bunch of super-powered henchmen and didn't want to waste a lot of time doing DNA testing. So he dropped a gamma bomb on a small city. A dozen or so people got super-powers, and everyone else died.

(On the other hand, if you do carry latent mutant genes, you should totally chuck yourself in a particle accelerator at your earliest convenience.)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does putting a grain/starchy food in boiling water soften it, but in boiling oil it turns crispy?

Like pasta or potatoes. I assume it has something to do with the chemistry, but I don't fully understand it...

[Assistant]
It's the result of the boiling point of water.  Water softens starchy foods, and removing water makes them crispy.

When boiled, they're submerged in water that is still a liquid (otherwise they'd be steamed).  So they are less wet that the water and they increase their water content.

When put in oil the oil is considerably hotter (usually 360 to 400 F or about 180-200C).  At that temperature the smaller amount of water in the food expands rapidly and is forced out (this is the source of the bubbles in fryers).  This process results in the outside of the food to ending up much drier and crispier than when it entered.


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

[User]
ELI5:What would happen if the Crown Prince of Denmark were to marry the Crown Princess of Sweden and they had a child?

What would happen to the respective countries and their monarchy? Would they merge to become one nation? Obviously discounting current children, I am curious.

[Assistant]
The child would be the monarch of two different countries, in a situation called a personal union.  The countries would remain separate.

And since the succession runs through different bloodlines, and different countries, have different rules of succession, they could easily wind up with different rulers.  If that monarch had no children or siblings, one of his father's relatives would wind up on the Danish throne, and one of mother's on the Swedish throne.


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

[User]
Is it me or has Google's search engine gotten worse?

I like their instant Ai reply at the top which is pretty accurate, but the search results for the rest of the pages pretty much suck, are either news articles, or out of context, and I noticed it brings back mostly irrelevant information. Am I wrong or have people noticed this too? And why is Wikipedia usually at the top. Sometimes their content is atrociously inaccurate.

[Assistant]
Yeah, search results in general have gotten worse over the past few years as more people learn how to use SEO to promote their shitty content.

I keep finding these bullshit generated scam/virus pages.

So not really Google getting worse, more the content google is searching has gotten better at gaming the system.


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

[User]
[Superman] Why Superman is not considered a vigilante?

Unlike Batman, whose crime-fighting activity is still technically illegal despite the unofficial endorsement of the Gotham PD, Superman does everything as he is some sort of public officer: he patrols cities in plain day, arrests suspects of felonies and he is even openly summoned by politicians, generals etc.

That being said, does Superman has some official role granted to him by the US Government (or other governments considering he operates on a global scale)? Let's not forget that Superman (when he is not in his Clark Kent identity) is still undocumented: nobody officially know his birthplace, family and home and thus it would be quite difficult for hime to receive some forma recognition.

This could appears irrelevant for an invulnerable flying alien, but let's not forget that Superman always makes a big deal about being compliant to laws and rules.

[Assistant]
I always assumed the reason is because Superman is noticeable more powerful than Batman.

Batman is much more intelligent and methodical but since he only uses his abilities to beat up bad guys while dressed as a bat, his genius is often overlooked.

Superman is more recognizable and works in the open. Since the Government can't control him and he appears outwardly altruistic, it'd be better to hand him a set of rules while still allowing him to do his job.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we sometimes produce tears when we're laying down on our sides? Or is that just me?

[Assistant] Your eyes' "drainage canals" (where the tears drain) are located on the sides of your eyes next to your nose. When you are laying on your right side, for example, your right eye has to work against gravity to continue the normal process of draining old/excess tears. This just makes it a little easier for tears to "leak out" in the direction of gravity (that, and the shape of your eye at its outermost points).


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

[User]
[General Superheroes] How efficient is it to store a super suit on a mannequin?

Often superheroes are depicted as storing their supersuits on mannequins in their lair, but this seems like it would be pretty inefficient, as getting the suit off would be more time consuming. Wouldn't be better to have each part of the suit folded or hung separately?

[Assistant] That presupposes the individual only has one costume - given the wear and tear of the average superhero costume, there is likely a folded costume nearby. Which raises the question of why they have mannequins in the first place... It can't be *that difficult* to get a date.


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

[User]
[Comics] Could a character with a healing factor contract parasites or a bacteria that resides in, say, their intestines?

Would their healing factor kill the intruders even if they aren't in the bloodstream?

[Assistant] Depends on how the healing factor works. Some like Wolverine or the Hulk could probably expel/kill the intruders, but someone whose power is just healing faster than normal (like the Flashes or other speedsters) wouldn't.


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

[User]
If stitches are meant to fuse your skin together across an open wound, could you then feasibly fuse your skin together with another person's skin?

I think the title says it all. Just got stitches done in my finger which prompted this thought. Is there something inherent in our own skin that will enable it to fuse with itself, or can one's skin just as easily recognize and accept another's? Thanks.

[Assistant] Wouldn't that be a skin graft?  Your body heals much faster with its own skin.  It will attack foreign materials meaning other people's skin as well.  Usually they will grow your skin if you need something that serious.


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

[User] [The Thing - 1982] It's 1987 - five years have passed since the movie ending and The Thing managed to reach mainland. What is the state of the world? How do the cities look like? Is there any hope for mankind in the future?

[Assistant]
If the computer simulation is accurate, the entire planet is aliens with no original human or animal species left alive within 3 years.  So Earth probably looks like the home planet of the alien.

If the alien was the ship pilot, then it is an intelligent, space faring race and Earth is probably well on it's way to that level of technology.  If the Thing was a sort of parasite that infected the original ship pilot, then Earth is a massive biomass of Cronenberg nightmares.


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

[User]
CMV: Most advice on how to be happy commits the wishful thinking fallacy

Most happiness advice seems perfectly okay with bullshitting you to make you feel better. Or interrupting your thought process so that you don't reach a sad conclusion. As a scientifically / logically minded person this annoys me. I feel a deep sense of purpose in investigating things and following ideas where they lead. I feel like positive psychology and therapy weren't designed for logically minded people. There's a bunch of cheap advice we're supposed to follow and not question any contradictions. I want my view changed since I want to be happy but in a way that respects a scientific and honest thinking process.

Some examples of wishful thinking advice:

1. "Be optimistic": Believe that things will turn out better than the evidence suggests because it will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.
2. "Be religious": Religious people have higher levels of happiness. People are religious not because of evidence but because it gives them purpose, community, etc.
3. "Don't compare yourself to others": Other people have nicer things than you, but you should pretend they don't exist. The other advice is that "you don't know what they're going through", i.e. you should believe they're going through a tough time and hiding it from you based on no evidence.
4. Cognitive-behavioral therapy: When your brain has a thought your therapist doesn't like, stall indefinitely before you reach the conclusion. Or "challenge" the thought -- arbitrarily label it and all its implications as invalid.
5. "You don't know what happened": When you keep getting rejected on dates or job interviews it's not your fault. It was this mysterious one-off thing beyond your control -- always a different one, and don't think about it too much. Also if good things keep happening to you it's because you're talented.
6. Affirmations: Stand in front of a mirror and repeat the same thing over and over again until you believe it.

It seems like the formula is: believe or don't believe X, yeah I know it's bullshit and not based on any facts, but soon you'll feel better and forget you lied to yourself.

I should note that most behavior-based advice on happiness makes sense to me: get enough sleep, eat well, exercise, drink water, live close to work, have lots of sex if possible, etc. It's the thought-based advice that's bullshit.

[Assistant]
To be clear, you are okay with exercise?  Lifting heavy objects that you don't need to bring anywhere, then putting them back in the same place afterwards?  Or walking just for the purpose of walking, with no logical reason to go to the location you are going?

So if you are willing to move your body contrary to the logical ways you'd direct it for exercise just because exercise is empirically shown to be healthier, why not exercise your mind?  Avoid envy, practice gratitude, pray, etc just as empirically proven exercise and not because you have a logical reason to move your mind those ways.  Empiricism beats logical "what seems like it follows" for moving the body; why not for the mind?


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

[User] ELI5: why do some prosthetic legs tend to hand a backwards curve when human legs are straight?

[Assistant]
Prosthetic legs aren't designed to simulate human bones, but rather to support the weight as close to how an entire leg would as possible. This means they need to simulate not just the support of the leg, but the flexibility and cushioning of the foot and ankle.

That flexibility isn't usually possible from a straight structure, unless it's soft, but prosthetics need to be durable because they aren't made of constantly regenerating cells.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is that when we experience a blow to the head we see stars?

[Assistant]
that's shock, which can result in a rapid lowering of blood pressure, so as to mitigate bleeding out if you were injured.

that lowering of blood pressure can make you pass out, or see stars, or essentially feel dazed. It also might have to do with brain injury if the blow was bad enough.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are banana bags (the IV fluid) yellow?

I would really like to know.

[Assistant] One of the components of a banana bag is a multi-vitamin injection (MVI). This contains vitamin B2, which is yellow in color due to the chemical structure of riboflavin (B2). Same reason that taking a multi-vitamin as a tablet may cause your urine to be a bright yellow or orange color.


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

[User] [TheSimpsons] How is Krusty the Clown such a famous star when he does his show out of a local television studio?

[Assistant] He's filmed local to Springfield, but the show itself is not only in active rotation nationwide, but has an extensive back catalog in syndication. On top of that, his physical plant at "Krustylu Studios" is a fairly big operation; he's not like Wayne and Garth operating out of his basement on a public access channel, he's got a solid setup for what he's doing. Relocating to a more prestigious location would be doable, but A) his house is already in Springfield, B) Springfield's cost of living is a lot lower than anyplace worth moving to, and C) he doesn't really *need* to go anywhere bigger, since his show is pretty self contained.


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

[User] ELI5 - How can some flu/cold seasons be worse because previous years were better?

[Assistant]
All flu viruses are related to each other, which means that, to our body, they may also appear similar to each other. If you got Flu-1 last year (and recovered) and Flu-2 is coming around this year is a variant of Flu-1, you may have some residual immunity from Flu-1 that can help you fight Flu-2.

However, if very few people got the flu last year and the year before that, then their previous immunity (from three winters ago) is much reduced. Also, since the flu has been able to evolve for two years, it may look more different to our bodies than last-year's flu might look. This makes the current form of the flu more challenging for our bodies to handle.


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

[User] ELI5: How is my boss at the pizza place I work at able to pay all of his employees cash without anyone (IRS) looking into it? This is incredibly illegal no?

[Assistant]
There's nothing inherently illegal about getting paid in cash, as long as everyone reports their taxes as they should then it is all ok.

What can happen with some businesses that pay in cash is that some employees are "off the books". In this situation the employee is paid out of the day/week's takings before the employer actually tallies up how much the business made. This means that, on paper, the business is making less money than it actually is which can save the owner in taxes (the specifics will vary depending on tax laws in your region, but this usually amounts to tax fraud).

The tax offices do police this sort of practice through audits. Of course they can't audit everyone all the time, so a lot of smaller businesses can go on operating this way more or less indefinitely. Even if they are audited, because the cash-based employees aren't on any documentation it can be hard to detect what's happening.

In theory employees could tip off the tax office, but in general this doesn't occur, keeping their income off the books is beneficial for the employee because they can avoid paying income tax of it, effectively boosting their wage.


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

[User]
Will the cables laying along the bottom of the sea ever deteriorate or even decompose?

I mean there must be an estimate of if we ever need to replace them!

[Assistant]
It might surprise you to know that the first under-sea cables were laid in the mid-1800s - we've been doing this for over 150 years now.

And yes, they do have a life-span. There's no "if" we ever need to replace them, we *do* replace them regularly (as in every few decades). The cables are subject to wear and other damage too - if they are severed then they can be repaired in sections (but this leaves a weak point in the system and is not desirable). But otherwise there comes a point where repair wouldn't even be practical, so you get our your ship and lay down a new cable!

Nothing humans make tends to last indefinitely - electrical wiring, gas and water pipes, roads, etc. all have a life-span. We often use things way beyond what their original rated life-span was, but there's not really anything that we make under the assumption it will last indefinitely. There's always an idea of when we'll need to replace something at the point when it's first made.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can you look directly at the sun during sunrise or sunset but not when it's middle today?

[Assistant] When the sun is directly overhead, it's light is being filtered by much less of the atmosphere than if it were peeking over the horizon. This is also why the sky appears more blue overhead, and appears more white-ish the closer you get to the horizon. You're literally looking through more atmosphere.


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

[User]
Does street light affect plant growth?

Does the light from a street lamp have any effect on the growth of a plant exposed to it?

Considering that street lights are turned on automatically after it gets dark it's understandable that a tree directly under a street lamp is exposed to about twice as much light (almost 24h) compared to a tree that isn't exposed to the light.

If one were to compare the growth and shedding of a sample of leaves on two trees of the same specie and age, one which is exposed to street light and another which isn't; would there be any differences in terms of plant growth?

[Assistant]
I did a similar experiment in the 6th grade.  We planted several plants in pots and left them in different locations.  The four groups were:
 - Sunlight only
 - Artificial light only
 - Sunlight + artificial (your streetlight scenario)
 - no light

The sunlight + artificial light grew the same as the sunlight only plant - that is to say that the artificial light had no effect.

The plant with no light grew an extremely long stem, but never developed leaves - it kept growing taller in an attempt to emerge from the soil.  This is the same thing that the plant with artificial light only did, although the plant with no light grew shorter.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does water poured onto already moist potting soil soak in faster than water poured onto completely dry potting soil?

[Assistant]
When the soil dries completely there are hydrophobic residues on the surface that prevent the water from being absorbed until the surface tension is broken.

ELI5-er:
When the soil dries completely, waxes and oils in the soil protect the surface.

Kind of like the way it is hard to wet a new towel.

Source: asked this exact question in hydrology class once.


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

[User]
[Animorphs] Andalite Soldiers

Alright, so for nostalgic purposes I have been re-reading some Animorphs novels, and as far as I can tell, in the Andalite military, I have not heard of any reports of Andalite soldiers wearing body armor or protective gear during ground combat. Why is this? Is this an honor/cultural thing, or are their commanders that incompetent in war?

[Assistant] I assume it's because need to be morph ready. The Animorphs discovered that clothing won't morph, with the exception of flexible, skintight clothing. Large combat morphs would destroy body armor, possibly injuring the wearer in the process, and small infiltration morphs would simply leave the armor behind.


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

[User]
Do you have to take into account atmospheric pressure when calculating the upward acceleration of rockets?

Hi,
If yes, do you have to apply the force of gravity and the force of atmospheric pressure separately?

[Assistant]
Yes! Drag is a major consideration during early stages of a flight. It also must be calculated separately from gravity since drag is dependent on the velocity, which is increasing with thrust, and the air density, which is decreasing with altitude. Drag is also dependent on the direction of air flow with respect to the vehicle (called "angle of attack"), whereas gravity is always pointing in the same direction, another reason it needs to be considered separately.

It actually presents something of a problem because during launch, a spacecraft has two major sources of energy loss, called "gravity losses" and "drag losses", both of which reduce fuel efficiency. To minimize gravity losses, you want to accelerate as fast as possible away from the Earth and minimize the time you spend thrusting against gravity. On the other hand, drag is proportional to the square of velocity, and directly proportional to density of the air, so to minimize the drag losses you would want to keep velocity low at low altitudes and then increase velocity as you get to altitudes where the air is much thinner (the stress induced by atmospheric drag is also a very important consideration).

So they compromise by varying the throttle during the ascent to best balance the losses to these two forces. For example, the Space Shuttle would launch with the engines wide open, but as it gained altitude and speed, it would begin to throttle back to as little as 60% until it passed a point called "max Q", which is where the drag (and stress on the spacecraft) is greatest--if you listen to the radio transmissions of launches, you can hear them say when the vehicle passes max Q. Once they pass it, they throttle back up because they are now at an altitude where the density is so dropping so fast that increasing the velocity doesn't significantly increase drag.

**EDIT:** Since you asked specifically about pressure, there are issues that have to be taken into consideration to deal with the pressure as well, namely with the rocket's engines. The ambient pressure effects the thrust produced and the efficiency of the engines, which in rocketry is referred to as the "specific impulse." The specific impulse of the Saturn V engine in a vacuum is 304 s, but at sea level, it drops to 263 s.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do multiple eggs from the one birds nest know to hatch at the same time? Having had chickens I know the eggs aren't all laid on the same day, yet they tend to hatch within hours.

I've seen some posts mention "They communicate with each other" but how??? They're in an egg? And does that mean some of the chicks are premature or underdeveloped because the older egg chose when to hatch or something?

[Assistant] The hen does not begin to incubate the eggs until the whole clutch is laid. When a hen does this it's called 'Broodiness' and is a behavior a lot of chicken ranchers use to recognize when to separate the hen from the rest of the flock to prevent infighting.


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

[User]
[Attack on Titan] About the Colossal Titan... (massive spoilers ahead)

When we see Berthold's transformation take place for the final time, and when we see Armin transforming around Marleyan navy (S4), the transformation is like a mini-nuke. But the Colossal Titan's previous transformations weren't that violent. Why is this the case?

[Assistant]
In Marley, Bertoldt had specifically been training to be the Colossal Titan. He haenough experience and training to be able to control the energy release during the transformation.

Its unclear if Armin had the ability to control in the moment and chose not to for maximum effect, or if he cant control it.


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

[User]
How were they able to increase the speed of USB 2.0  40 times compared to USB 1.1. It's using exactly the same connector with the same 4 wires and the same shielding.

USB 1.1 has 12 Mbit/s while USB 2.0 has a speed of 480 Mbit/s, but how? Why didn't they make is 480Mbit/s the first time?

[Assistant]
They never aimed for speed on USB1. It was a replacement for a bunch of different disjoint ports with a speed that would allow all their functions to be condensed to a single connector. That was the whole point - a Universal Serial Bus. You could connect keyboards (no more PS/2 keyboard connector), mice (no PS/2 mouse connector), serial devices (no more serial ports), parallel devices (no more parallel port) and similar devices. It wasn't intended for fast transfer - you'd use Firewire/iLink/IEEE1394 for that.

For a five-year-old: It's like somebody took the good Lego, Duplo, Meccano and K'Nex parts and made them fit together. Your parents will still call it a toy but it's really really awesome.


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

[User]
ELI5: How sports commentators can recall an obscure stat within seconds of a play.

I am thinking of NFL commentators that literally give a certain stat that is quite obscure within seconds of some record being set/broken. But this can apply to any sport, of course.

[Assistant]
At the highest level (think Sunday Night Football) there will be an army of producers doing research and putting things in front of Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels. But Cris and Al study notes for days before a game, interview players, etc. so they're prepared with lots of material, even if they don't know that Peyton Manning has 186 wins, they probably know it is Brett Favre who he is about to exceed in that category.

At lower levels (think regular season baseball game), the announcers do a lot more of the work themselves, with assistance from possibly one producer. Things like "This would be the 3rd no-hitter for R.A Dickey" are probably looked up by the announcers during a commercial break, or even during an inning. But again, a lot can come from memory since these regular season announcers will watch 150 games a season plus some spring training games.


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

[User]
How did the Apollo lunar transfer stages end up in a solar orbit?

After the lunar injection burn, the Apollo crew and the transfer stage were on a free return trajectory. Why didn't the stage slingshot around the moon and burn up in Earth's atmosphere?

[Assistant]
About an hour after TLI, the CSM separated from the S-IVB stage, swung around, docked with and extracted the LM from its stowed location atop the upper stage.

Once this operation was completed, the S-IVB had one job left.   Avoid interfering with the CSM-LM spacecraft.

For Apollos 8, 10, 11, and 12, mission planners redirected the S-IVBs toward the trailing limb of the Moon for a gravity assist that would accelerate the spent rocket into heliocentric orbit.

For Apollo's 13-17, a more scientifically useful fate awaited.  These S-IVBs were redirected to lunar impact to generate seismic signals for the seismometers left by previous missions.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are we still driving on inflated rubber tires?

Cars have been around for over a hundred years, and despite all the incredible advancements they all rely on inflated rubber tires which puncture, lose pressure...

Maybe I just don't understand the dynamics tires, but I find it odd that there hasn't been much development in this field.

[Assistant] Today's tires have very little in common with the tires of 50 years ago beyond being rubber & filled with air.  The way their built & the materials they use have been continuously refined & improved.


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

[User] ELI5: How do ventriloquists throw their voice to make it sound like it's coming from somewhere else?

[Assistant]
The voice is not being "thrown" in any way.

Here is how it works:

* Your brain has the experience of seeing mouths move and hearing voices over and over and over your whole life.

* You learn, kind of, the general timings and movements a mouth makes when it says a word or phrase.

* Now, when they do a trick, they use another person or object (like a doll or mouth-like thing).

* They say things, and those things "match" (remember the above) what the mouth is doing on the other object (If it's a person, usually they control the timing of the other person through some method, like tapping them behind the back or at an angle you can't see)

**At this point** your brain assumes the voice is coming from the mouth, since your brain generally assumes that things that happened consistently before are what is happening now, and tricks you into thinking the voice is coming from the moving object.

*Also*, the person who *is* speaking doesn't move their mouth, which further makes your brain "assume" they aren't the ones saying the words.


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

[User]
ELI5:If Radio waves are omni-directional, why does a station go from clear to garbled and back again in a matter of inches?

Adjusting the antenna, or in the case of a car, "inching" forward at a stoplight can make the radio go from static, clear, back again, and repeat? If an area can pickup the signal, shouldn't that whole area be 'saturated' and anywhere nearby should be the same?

[Assistant]
The cause is **multipath interference**.

Radio waves reflect off of things like buildings and the ground. As the waves expand out from the transmitter, part of the signal gets reflected and part travels directly to your receiver. The reflected part travels a longer path than the direct part so it when it arrives at the receiver it's out of phase with the direct part. Because the signal is a repeating wave, *sometimes* the reflected part is perfectly opposite phase as the direct part and it cancels the direct part out. Most of the time it's somewhere in between which doesn't totally cancel but interferes with it.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly are neurotransmitters and why do we need so many different types of neurotransmitters?

[Assistant]
Neurotransmitters in short are little chemicals that our body responds to in various ways (transmitters). We add neuro because they originate and communicate across neurons.

We have a number of different neurotransmitters based on a few reasons, what is the likely the most important reason is to send different signals to the same tissues or similar tissues; as well as to reduce noise from neurotransmitters escaping and activating nearby cells and neurons.


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

[User]
What happens when light passes through a strong electric field?

Since photons have no charge, the light beam shouldn't bend, but will there be constructive/destructive interference between the external electric field and the light beam's electric field?

For example, if the E-field of the light wave is oriented along the z-axis and the external E-field is applied in the +z direction, then will there be constructive interference to half the wave and destructive interference to the other half?  If so, how does this affect the properties of the light wave?

[Assistant]
Electromagnetic theory is a linear theory, meaning that light, electric, and magnetic fields simply superimpose atop each other without interaction. This breaks down when the light is very, very high frequency (gamma rays), because quantum mechanics permits the gamma rays to spontaneously form electron-positron pairs which then can interact. As mentioned above, the presence of matter such as a crystalline lattice can modify the expression of a photon to a form that can be influenced by an electric field.

So a) nothing, b) unless the photon is very high energy, or c) you're not in plain vacuum.


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

[User]
[The Martian] Specifically, how did Mark Watney generate water on Mars?

I know as told from the movie version the general steps, but would appreciate an in-depth answer. Such as the role of the catalyst, where did N2 go, how did H2 and O2 come together, what caused the explosion, why it did not happen again, ETC.

Thanks!

[Assistant] It's all in the book.  The MDV had leftover hydrazine fuel.  A platinum catalyst split it into hydrogen and nitrogen.  He then burned the hydrogen in atmosphere to make water.  The burning didn't consume all the hydrogen though, so levels built up, creating a bomb.  He defused the bomb by removing all the *oxygen* from the air and then using a limited flow of O2 to burn off the hydrogen.  But his air supply mask wasn't airtight so his exhaled oxygen built up enough to lead to a small explosion.


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

[User] [Game of Thrones] Did Tormund ever have a chance with Brienne or was it lost cause from the start?

[Assistant]
Brienne is known to be romantically/sexually attracted to two characters over the course of the series - Renly Baratheon and Jaime Lannister.

First thing is looks. Brienne has extremely high standards for looks. Renly and Jaime are both considered some of the most attractive men in the realm. Tormund is not. Hes considered rugged and rough looking. Next up is more important - why she was into them.

Kindness. Brienne fell in love with Renly because he was the first lord to ever actually be nice to her. He danced with her and treated her as a lady even though shes huge and is described as very manly. And she fucking hated Jaime at first. Until after spending a lot of time with him she got under his shell and found that he was a good person. Tormund is *kind of* a good person. Hes not evil and hes loyal. But hes crude and war-like.

Briennes other attractions indicate an attraction to Tormund is very unlikely.


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

[User] ELI5 how non-advertising, free services make money. For example, WhatsApp doesn't advertise, is free and is worth millions of dollars.

[Assistant] When a service is free, you are the commodity being sold.  The app ultimately is in the analytics business, and the data on user habits could be valuable to third parties, for reasons as boring as selling you goods... and reasons as nefarious as keeping citizens on the straight and narrow (hopefully not).