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

[User]
Why is LSD so powerful?

A normal LSD dose is about 100g and it can cause hallucinations but the threshold is 25g.
How can such small quantities of this substance alter your mind?
This has been for a long time one of my curiosities. Thanks for the answers.

[Assistant]
Not speaking to LSD specifically, but for a lot of drugs, a little bit goes a long way.  Drug X, for example, might result in anti-depressant effects by reducing seratonin reuptake, but that doesn't mean the Drug X is causing that *directly*.  Drug X might be a ligand for Enzyme Y, which causes increased levels of hormone Z to be produced, and hormone Z is what causes the increased seratonin levels.  Because of the signaling pathways, the amount of seratonin released might be very disproportional to the amount of Drug X ingested.

To put that in other words, 1 molecule of drug X might cause 10 molecules of hormone Z to be released, and each molecule of hormone Z released causes 10 molecules of hormone Y (which is what is *actually* causing the effect of the drug) to be released.  Thus 1 molecule of drug X can lead to the release of 100 molecules of hormone Y.  This mechanism, extrapolated out to dozens or hundreds of steps, is how a very small amount of a drug can lead to very pronounced effects.


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

[User]
What changes occur in babies skin between 5 and 6 months that allow for the use of sunscreen?

The go-to rule for sunscreen for babies is 6 months due to the their skin being thin and the surface area ratio for chemicals. What happens at 6 months to make it acceptable to use sunscreen? Is waiting until 6 months even necessary?

[Assistant] Nothing. The skin gradually toughens up from birth onwards. By 6 months the vast majority of babies are ready. Some would be fine at 5 months or even earlier.  Some might still have a reaction until they're older. They've picked an age where they feel the risk is tiny relatuve to the befefits.


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

[User] Are prime numbers in base 10 still prime numbers in other number bases?

[Assistant]
It's not the number representation that is prime, it is the quantity. Take 15 pebbles, and you can arrange them in a 3x5 block pattern. The quantity 15 is not prime.

Take 11 pebbles, and you can't arrange them in a solid block other than 1x11. The *quantity* 11 is prime, no matter how you represent it in a numbering system.


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

[User]
To what degree, and how, does flash photography harm museum exhibits?

Most museums that I've visited prohibits flash photography, but allows normal photography, in fear that strong light might harm the artifacts some how. How exactly does this work?

[Assistant]
Ultraviolet light or strong visible light will tend to cause pigments to bleach. What is happening on a molecular level is that the light is breaking apart chemical bonds. With UV light you have a situation where a single photon can break such bonds, so there is really no minimum level of acceptable exposure. With visible light the same thing can happen or a two-step process (of separate photons exciting a chemical bond then causing it to break) can occur.

In general though the light from a properly UV-filtered flash is no more harmful to art than the ordinary gallery lighting, but many galleries and museums maintain a ban on flash photography out of an excess of caution.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are most of the herbivores mammals like elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffe, etc. so big in size? Even in the jurassic era the largest dinosaur was a herbivore.

[Assistant]
It's a matter of resources, and how to obtain them. There is a lot of plant matter, which is relatively easy to renew; if an animal is adapted to grazing, the resources are plentiful, and once they get past a certain size, there is basically no carnivore that will prey on them (though their babies may be fair game for predators).

For carnivores, it's a different story: being too large would be detrimental to agility and it may make it impossible to catch prey. There is also less to eat, according to the biological food pyramid, as carnivores are secondary or tertiary consumers. Herbivores are primary consumers.


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

[User] [WH40k] would finding a Fully intact and complete STC with all blueprints, mean victory for the imperium?

[Assistant]
Unlikely.

It depends on too many factors, if they could keep it secret from the Chaos and other races, could they decipher it, could they use the templates given their current state of technology and understanding and most importantly if they have the time to use the technology they found.

If the Imperium were however, to find a STC and keep it secret.  Let say...  Mars?  Use it to develop it's technology and then feed it through to the Astartes and their armies then it'd give Humanity a huge boost.  However you've still got the Chaos Space-Marines (not to mention their Gods), the Eldar, the Necrons and let's not forget the Tyranids.

The Tyranids and Necrons esp, a blaster welded by a SM could cut down dozens, hundreds of opponents.  However when your enemy has hundreds of thousands, millions, billions (?) of fighters then technology is only as good as the person who welds it.

In short, it would no doubt help the Imperium if they used it correctly.  But unless the STC templates have some heavy hitting weapons **and** the techniques for manufacturing them quickly then the Imperium would still have problems.  But if the Imperium got the STC, kept it secret and equipped their entire fleet/Astartes etc. with this lost tech, then the odds tilt favorably surely?


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

[User] ELI5: How is illegally downloaded material detected/who does the detecting?

[Assistant] Mostly honey traps.  When you download p2p you are connecting to a someone else, or when using bit torrent lots of people.  They get your IP address, then can track that back to your isp and either ask them to tell you to stop or request your details.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do migraines make you nauseous ?

[Assistant] There are theories about how the vagus nerve is responsible for the nausea. Breathing techniques have proven effective in reducing it. Try 7-12 (practice when you can): Breathe in for about 7 seconds and out for 12. on outbreath you may have to purse your lips to slowly deflate. Imagine the last of the air going out through the soles of your feet until the diafragm is completely relaxed / belly empty of air. It also lowers heart rate and bp, releases endorphines and adjust the balance between O2 and CO2 in the blood. Simultaneously you can use your fingers to press from both sides on the meaty area between the thumb and index finger. Its supposed to hurt a bit. This alone reduces nausea.


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

[User]
ELI5: What made nuclear submarines so special?

What makes them different from traditional submarines and why does nuclear energy impact that? Do nuclear subs have nuclear reactors on the submarine? What do they do with the waste?

[Assistant]
Traditional submarines use a combination of diesel motors and electric batteries to travel. When the submarine is on the surface, it burns diesel fuel to move and also recharge the electric batteries. This ruins a big disadvantage of submarines, which is that they... can go *under* the water and remain hidden to sneak around and catch enemies by surprise. When the submarine *does* go under water, it cannot burn diesel any more, because burning diesel makes toxic gases that need to be vented outside or else you'll suffocate the crew. So it uses those electric batteries, except the electric batteries don't have the longest lifespan (like, only a couple of days, though newer systems with air-independent propulsion can last up to several weeks underwater).

With nuclear-powered submarines, though, a submarine can stay underwater *forever*, because a little bit of nuclear fuel produces a ton of energy. Literally the one thing that limits how long a nuclear-powered submarine can stay underwater is the amount of food you have onboard for your crew, because the crew's gotta eat. And it can even stay out to sea forever (minus the food thing) - a diesel-electric submarine still needs liquid fuel to run.

And yes, they do have a nuclear reactor on board.


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

[User] ELI5: If all the cells in our body are replaced every ~month. Why do we keep things like scars and wrinkles if they're not in our DNA?

[Assistant] Scar is formed of extracellular collagen, ie outside the cells.  When people say that cells are replaced every month this is true, but the extracellular components are not changed and the scaffolding stays the same, ie the scars remain even though the cells are replaced.  In ELI 5 terms, think of an apartment.  Even though a new family may move into the residence every month,  the building itself remains the same.


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

[User]
Is cyanide toxic to all aerobic organisms?

Or not?

I know for sure that it's toxic to all organisms that have mitochondria (or an electron transport chain) - and cytochrome c (which cyanide blocks) is an integral part of the ETC. But it's not bleach (which practically destroys all living organisms).

But what about aerobic bacteria? Do they use cytochrome c? I'm discussing this issue with NASA Astrobiologist Chris McKay, so he would be especially interested in the answer to this too.

[Assistant] all aerobic bacteria have cytochrome C. this is actually one way we test to see if something can use oxygen. we test colonies for having cytochrome C oxidase, the enzyme next in the chain after cytochrome c on the ETC.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the light that dentists use to harden fillings, and how does it harden it so quickly?

[Assistant]
That light is an LED curing light. The fillings contain a certain chemical that reacts to light emitted at very specific wavelengths on the blue part of the spectrum. When exposed to that light, it triggers a reaction that causes thefilling to cure pretty much instantly

The reason they use this sort of light in particular is because other methods of curing would be unreliable. Natural light or air or moisture curing would all harden immediately.

But using these lights and the chemicals that react to themmeans there's no chance of accidentally exposing it to the curing method until the exact moment they wanted to.


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

[User]
What is the oldest expression we still use in modern times?

Expressions like "to the bitter end" are relatively new, but are there some which made it over from old cultures? And how old would they be?

[Assistant] A lot of enduring phrases are usually religious in origin simply because preaching in olden times was the main way to convey an idea. "A drop in the bucket" can be linked to Isaiah 40:15 (KJV) for example. Now if this became an everyday expression more recently or not is harder to prove, but the strong imagery is something that many people have always been able to understand.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] The Cave

Why did Yoda tell Luke he wouldn't need weapons in the cave on Dagobah?

Also; When get got in there, he met a "dark side" apparition who attacked him. What would have happened if he wouldn't have had his light saber when the Darth Vader appeared?

WTF, Yoda?

[Assistant]
The apparition that attacked Luke was composed of his own dark side energy. You'll notice that he is briefly consumed with the passion of the dark side while he fights the "Vader" only to snap out of it when he sees his own face behind the mask.

Yoda didn't know everything that was going to happen in the cave or in the future, only that Luke was going to have to confront Vader *and* in doing so confront the dark side to an extent greater than he thought Luke would be able to withstand. Yoda's counsel to leave his weapon behind was rooted in a desire to see Luke embrace the light side of the force and forsake violence and passion, which, as we know, is how he ended up beating the Emperor. He dropped his weapon and Palpatine tormented him, spurring Anakin to intervene.

Yoda was not the all-knowing perfectly wise character he seems to be. Often he was overly cautious and doubtful. He thought Luke would succumb entirely to the dark side if he tried to violently confront Vader. He did not anticipate that Vader would break free of the dark side because of Luke.


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

[User] ELI5:Why don't Police Departments use unmarked cars that are actually inconspicuous? A 2003 Toyota Camry will get me every time. A Dodge Charger with tinted windows never will.

[Assistant]
They do. The *real* undercover cops use them.

What you're thinking of as "unmarked" police cars are the ones driven by detectives and such. They're not making any attempt to conceal that it's a police car, they're just not marked like a patrol cruiser.


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

[User]
How do we really know what's beneath the Earth's surface?

The deepest hole we've ever dug is the SG-3 branch of the Kola Superdeep Borehole, which penetrates 7.5 miles into the Earth's crust. As deep as this hole is, it only goes 0.002% of the way to the center of the Earth. How then can we know what is beyond the Earth's crust? How do we know what the Mantle consists of? How do we know what the outer and inner cores consist of? And how do we know the thickness/density of each?

[Assistant]
We've discovered most of this by looking at seismic waves. By looking at the time it takes the vibrations from an earthquake to reach seismometers in different places, we can map out how quickly seismic waves travel through different regions of the earth's interior.

We can also do high-pressure lab experiments on predicted deep earth materials, and look at bits of deep earth material in volcanic lavas. For shallower depths, there are actually a few places on Earth's surface where upper mantle material is exposed. We also can understand some things by looking at how earth responds to adding or removing surface loads, like artificial reservoirs and the ice sheets that used to cover much of North America and Eurasia.

To answer your specific questions:

Besides the exposed upper mantle, geochemical theory predicts what minerals will be stable in an assemblage of certain elements at some pressure and temperature. We can see what elements are present in the deep earth by looking at certain igneous rocks. We also know the mantle *exists* because earth has too much gravity for a planet of its size that's made up of crustal material - Isaac Newton was the first to calculate this.

We know the core exists, and is mostly iron and nickel, because meteorites tell us earth should contain *a lot* of iron and we know it's not in the mantle.

We know there's a liquid outer core because we see that seismic S waves (which only travel through solids) don't propagate through it, and a solid inner core because seismic waves travel faster through it and bend.

We can find the thicknesses because seismic waves reflect off of boundaries, or discontinuities. Densities are constrained by seismic wave speeds and surface measurements of Earth's gravity.


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

[User] ELI5: Since the Earth has a magnetic field, would it be possible to create a flying machine by repelling against it?

[Assistant]
No.

The field is not strong enough to lift an object with air inside.  Of course, you could make a balloon with a magnetic motor to steer it.  This would only work inside a special building, the wind would always overpower it.

The Earth's magnetic field is barely enough to turn a compass needle in a special, super-low-friction configuration.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are binoculars and riflescopes expressed in magnification, but camera lenses are expressed in focal length?

[Assistant]
Binoculars and rifle scopes are additional lenses in front of our camera system: the human eye. They change our innate view by the magnification.

Camera lenses are just one part of the camera system. The overall camera properties depends on the lens focal length and the size/specifications of the image sensor.


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

[User]
CMV: The "root" of the US healthcare crisis could simply be the food we eat.

Yes, we do have a crisis with healthcare costs/medical bills. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies are major players. However, I believe the root of the "health crisis" in America is in our food/diet. Many peer reviewed studies have shown that the US population's obesity, diabetes,and cancer rates are at multi decade highs, compared to other countries. Policy experts must focus on making the whole medical system more cost efficient and more focused on functional/holistic health. Enforcing food and environmental regulations are a must. Also, many low income communities do not have the money to afford healthier foods, and some of them live in food deserts. Society should encourage people to avoid and overcome chronic illness so that they can avoid the hospital beds in the first place. This system may allow Americans to actually rely less on healthcare, and this could decrease the amount that taxpayers have to pay for Medicare. Heck, the life expectancies in Korea, Japan,and Singapore are much higher than in the states. Their cultures all promote good diet and exercise. The conversation of reforming healthcare should boil down to this question: Would you want to live a life where you constantly have to rely on pills and hospital visits, instead of improving your overall, long term health?

You can disagree with me on this view,and I may be wrong. However, no one can deny that there are many studies that support the claim that US leads the world in chronic illnesses, and something has to be done about this eventually. In my own spare time, I have studied deeply about how the advent of fast food/junk food actually came about. The history of fast food in the states actually spans from gaining mid- Western farmlands during Manifest Destiny, to the gov't allowing more food to be produced from more acres of land during the post WW2 period, to Big Agra and Food constantly lobbying the gov't, and to the rise of fast food joints in all 50 states. If you study the effects that junk food and food additives have on the body, you would come to understand that it's really not a pretty picture. I just believe that we should be more focused in actually making people healthier in the long-term. To be frank, I strongly disagree with many of the policies put forth by virtually every politician with regard to healthcare. They all seem to ignore how the food we eat can impact our long term health, even though they all have their own merits when discussing the other aspects of the healthcare crisis.

What are your thoughts on how we solve our health crisis?

[Assistant]
Sure, fast food plays its part, but it isnt everything.

While the US consume the most fast food in the world per capita, France is number 2 by a slim margin.

Yet the Frenchs life expectancy is also 4 years higher than ours. They suffer significantly less rates of cancer and significantly lower deaths per capita from Americas biggest killer, heart disease.

Why?

Nationalized healthcare. When people have access to easily accessible, cheap healthcare they get regular check ups. They dont avoid the doctor for a year with random chest pain and only show up in the ER when they pass out. Their health is continually monitored, adjusted, treated and despite them eating like shit, like we do, they live longer, healthier lives.


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

[User]
If the ratio of matter to antimatter during the Big Bang was the opposite (1 billion matter particles to 1 billion and 1 antimatter particles) then is there any reason that we wouldn't have a universe made out of antimatter?

Saw a video about matter and antimatter by Minute Physics and got me thinking.

[Assistant]
As far as we know, the universe would probably look almost identical - just made of antimatter. But in all likelihood, an observer in that universe would definite matter and anti-matter oppositely. There would be some (very small) measurable differences, though. Matter and antimatter do behave slightly differently in weak interactions (and possibly in strong force interactions) through what are called CP violating processes.

It's worth noting that while anti-matter seems to behave almost exactly like matter, with the exception of the aforementioned CP violating processes, there's a lot that we still don't now about it. In particular, we don't know for sure if anti-matter interacts via gravity the same way as matter does, and it is very difficult to determine experimentally. We generally assume that it does, because it would be very weird (and very interesting!) if it didn't, but it is still technically an open question!


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

[User] How sensitive is a dog's sense of touch on the pads of it's feet or through it's fur?

[Assistant] Veterinary Technician here. The pads of dog paws are much like the pads of our feet. When we walk around barefoot often, they get calloused and rough, whereas when we are not barefoot often, our feet are softer and more sensitive. Dogs who go on walks/hikes/are outdoors often will have tougher pads, while the smaller/indoor only dogs will have incredibly soft paws that can damage easily. Therefore, a dog's sensitivity on its paws varies depending on their paws. Through its fur, dog skin is a different story. They are definitely not nearly as sensitive on their skin as us. There are certain areas that that you can poke with a needle that they won't even feel, like in between their shoulders, or directly into their bladder through the abdomen (to obtain a sterile urinary sample). However, it can often depend on the breed, or just dog in general. Certain dogs are just more reactive than others when it comes to skin/paws.


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

[User] [The Matrix] Why don't the machines just use nuclear or geothermal?

[Assistant]
The Matrix itself is the point; the machines wanted to create a world where humans could live peacefully and happily so they made a virtual one, as an alternative to continuing a war that would end in one side being exterminated.

The fact that it generates *some* power is just gravy.


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

[User] Can fast-moving water freeze? What if vigorously stirred, shook or otherwise manipulated a bottle of water while lowering the temperature lower than freezing?

[Assistant]
You would eventually end up with a slush of fine crystals becoming thicker and stiffer until it's too tightly packed to continue to agitate.  The more quickly you agitate it, the finer the crystals, the smoother the slush.

Sweeten and flavour for sorbet, sub dairy for the water if you want ice cream.


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

[User] ELI5: How come patients don't bleed to death during major surgeries?

[Assistant] We use a tool called cautery to seal small bleeders. For larger vessels, we either run a surgical stapler across them to cut them, or the ends get tied with silk suture after clamping. In big procedures where there is a lot of blood loss, we use something called a cell saver to recycle the blood and give it back to the patient. But for most procedures, there isn't any major bleeding to control in the first place.


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

[User] ELI5: on the Reeses minis pack I just devoured, it says the orange color is a registered trademark. - how can a company trademark a color?

[Assistant] What they are doing is trademarking that shade of orange used for cookies. This is to prevent others from making cookies so similar to Reese's that people will mistake them in a hurry. You can still use the color for other things and you might even get away with making cookies using another shade of orange as long as it is distinguished from Reese's.


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

[User]
[MCU] How is Wakanda technology so adavanced?

They have some of most advanced technology in the MCU and I don't get how. Having access to a lot of vibranium doesn't mean you can suddenly make technology more advanced than anywhere else on earth. So how do they have personal force field generators, exremely tough self repairing suits that can fold and deploy from a necklace, or any of the other stuff they display?

[Assistant] Wakanda is basically a civilization that never had a setback or a slump. Having vibranium (and more critically figuring out how to use sound to manipulate and shape it) more or less boosted them straight up to iron age level, but then exploiting that boost to keep themselves isolated and unconquered let them keep building on the edge.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] What would have happened if they took the One Ring to Valinor?

Cirdan was still running elves out to the West, what would have happened if they took the Ring there? Would an elven ship be blocked from entering if they carried it? Would they have been able to pull an Erendil 2.0?

[Assistant]
>Would an elven ship be blocked from entering if they carried it?

Pretty much.  Either blocked from entering or they simply wouldn't be able to reach Aman, which had been removed the the circles of the world in the Second Age.  From *The Fellowship of the Ring*, "The Council of Elrond"

>'Then if the Ring cannot be kept from him for ever by strength' said Glorfindel, 'two things only remain for us to attempt: to send it over the Sea, or to destroy it.'

>'But Gandalf has revealed to us that we cannot destroy it by any craft that we here possess,' said Elrond. `And they who dwell beyond the Sea would not receive it: for good or ill it belongs to Middle-earth; it is for us who still dwell here to deal with it.'


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

[User] ELI5:If radio waves dissipate and aren't able to be separated from background noise after a small distance traveled (a couple light years), what's the point of SETI?

[Assistant]
Kind of complicated to explain. Basically what you say is true of earths basic radio communications. Since we aren't looking to blast our signals in any particular direction, they get really quiet, really fast.

On the other hand, a focused signal can travel very far depending on how much power is used to send a radio signal.

The premise is that extraterrestrial life has similar or better technology than us (and we can detect "earth like" or "possible life" planets in the galaxy), that they would detect that Earth is earth-like, and would blast it with radio signals to see if we can receive and respond to them.

Such a radio blast, if enough energy were used, could easily travel a few hundred light years, but its still a very narrow window that we are looking at to try and detect alien life.


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

[User]
Why are distant white clouds not blue-tinted?

The further away something is, the bluer it appears, due to Rayleigh scattering. Which is also why the sky appears blue when lit up by the sun.

However, I have never seen a distant white cloud be any less white than close ones. When it comes to darker clouds, which are grayish up close, they DO get bluer in the distance. But white ones always seem white no matter the distance, even when a mountain is right below it and very blue. Why does this happen?

[Assistant]
Rayleigh scattering redirects shorter wavelength light (primarily blue) coming from a source into another direction. This results in two effects:

1- If you look at something relatively bright (say the sun) it appears red because some of the blue light that would have reached your eye is scattered away into other directions.

2- If you look at something relatively dark (say open sky) it appears blue because the air molecules in between you and the dark object "glow" blue (as a result of light scattered from brighter objects in other directions) adding more blue to what you see.

Both of these processes are always simultaneously competing. In bright objects the light scattered away is the dominant effect making them appear red. In dark objects more light is scattered into your line of site than out of it so they appear more blue. In your example dark clouds and the mountains are dark enough that they become more blue while the white clouds are in the region were the effects of the two processes are roughly equal so the color does not change significantly.

EDIT: note that Rayleigh scattering redirects all wavelengths of light not just blue, it is just a very week effect in the longer wavelengths (the strength of scattering is proportional to 1/wavelength^4 )


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we have over 18,000 unaffiliated police departments in the United States? Why isn't there a single government agency that unites them?

I guess I am asking why we have no national police force.

[Assistant]
Because there are lots of levels of legal authority in the US, and they are largely independent of each other (by Constitutional design). Federal laws are not the same as state laws, which are different from county or city ordinances. And sometimes they conflict. No single agency has the authority to enforce all those different laws, and even when the laws coincide, the heavy lifting is often left to the lowest level of authority that can effectively do it. For example, a murder investigation is generally done by the city PD where it happens, because they can do a local investigation best... the case will then be prosecuted by the locals _unless_ it's part of a bigger batch of crimes - like a multi-state crime spree - that needs interstate authority, and then the FBI or some other fed agency gets involved.

For the most part, a state trooper or FBI agent isn't going to write you a parking ticket. And a county sheriff's deputy isn't usually going to be running a murder investigation. Now, if a cop witnesses you breaking the law, they may be able to hold until the proper authorities do arrive, but maybe not. Each of those areas may cooperate with neighboring areas, but they might just as well jealously guard their independence.

A good example is the recent dustup in the South & Southwest over using local cops to do immigration enforcement. The short answer, from a legal perspective, is: they can't. State, county, or local cops are not authorized to make immigration busts for the simple fact that states, counties, and cities don't make immigration law. Only the federal gov't can do that, so only the federal gov't can enforce those laws. ICE may sometimes use local cops for additional manpower on larger raids, but the busts are all ultimately under the authority of ICE (or whoever).


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

[User]
[DC] Does Batman have eye screens?

When he's drawn with pure white eyes is that just to make him look more mysterious or is it supposed to be like his cowl has something built into it to protect his eyes?

[Assistant] Yes. Modern interpretations even have either contact lenses or lenses in the cowl which provide a HUD and several vision modes. There's even microphones and comms antennas in the ears to account for them covering Bruce's actual ears. Man thought of everything.


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

[User] ELI5: why does the US have a 3 school system (elementary, middle, high)?

[Assistant]
Government operated schools in the USA often went until around age fourteen with the expectation that students would then enter into apprenticeships or work in the family business.

As the economy changed, more parents wanted their children to be eligible for office employment. At the time, office workers came from the educated elite who attended preparatory schools. The government-operated high school was an attempt to emulate this.

At the same time, many school populations were rising, requiring the building of more facilities. Some suggested that, instead of just building more elementary schools, the existing schools could have their age range reduced and a new facility could be built for early-pubescent students which would act as a bridge between the elementary system and the high school system. This would be called a junior high school and later a middle school.


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

[User]
CMV: We should get rid of political parties and labels in the United States in favor of individualistic, rational, conversational politics.

Im sick of the Ds and the Rs. Im tired of hearing one side claim moral superiority of the other. My dream for American politics is one where each politician is the <insert name here> party, each with their exact belief system with no constraint to fit the ideas of one of the parties. Ditching labels will allow people to vote their conscience and find someone who really agrees with them.

Without party labels, typical dems and republicans could begin to adjust their own thinking and vote pragmatically. This may be wildly incorrect, but I believe most Americans think similarly deep down and have moderate views that the media doesnt show. With this free-flowing political society, the leader of the free world could serve America in a true country-over-party fashion.

Washington needs rational, individualistic politics, not  the current tribal madness tearing our country apart.

GW warned of this in his farewell address.

PS: I dont really have a political stance, I just believe in general libertarian, humanist ideas and a regulated capitalist economy.

[Assistant]
The problem with that idea - and with Washingtons - is that it isnt enforceable.  Political parties in one form or another have existed in every republic (Rome had the optimates and populares, England the Whigs and Tories).  People naturally tend to group with and support like-minded people.  Its human nature and good strategy.

However, having only TWO parties - as opposed to 3 or 5 or 12 - is a function of our system of government and elections and could be changed.  In particular, two things are to blame - the First Past the Post voting system and the office of the President.

First Past the Post is the system of voting used in America and essentially amounts to whoever gets the most votes wins.  The problem with this system is the spoiler effect.  In short, this system makes it so that third parties are detrimental to their own interests, because they draw votes away from their own side and advantage their worst enemy.  Every First Past the Post system ultimately tends toward a two party system.

Secondly, the importance of the President encourages two parties.  Since there is only one President, elected by the people, there is no possibility for a coalition-based executive.  There will always tend to be two candidates competing, because that is the most efficient way of denying your opponents power.

I support your ideas, but the way to accomplish them is to reform and reshape our democracy in a systematic way.  Banning parties wont work.


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

[User]
Can someone explain leveraging debt.

Im mostly interested in how governments use their debt. Also whats equity?

[Assistant]
I am assuming you are talking about investment finance here. Equity means shares in companies. Leveraging debt means borrowing money (paying interest on it) and using the money to invest (in shares maybe?) and hopefully getting a much higher return than the cost of the interest of the money borrowed.

This is not usually the language used for governments and they would not normally borrow money with the intention to invest it to get a higher return - and would be ill advise to do so. Nevertheless while not trying to do that, government capital spending can be modelled in that way. Governments typically borrow and have national debts while at the same time building roads or sewers which have a long term return.


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

[User] [ASOIAF] Could you bonsai a Weirwood Tree?

[Assistant]
They appear to be enough like other trees that it seems likely.  The fact that they retain the faces allegedly carved into them suggests that they could be very artistic as bonsai trees.

It would also certainly be more convenient to move the Weirwood bonsai to where you want to get married than to move the whole ceremony to a normal-sized tree.  Hanging the entrails of the condemned on a bonsai would be rough on a little tree, though.


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

[User] [Warcraft] What if Arthas had heeded Muradin's warning about Frostmourne being cursed and had not taken the blade?

[Assistant]
He would have died, and been revived as a Deathknight anyway. In Northrend, with limited forces at his disposal, Arthas was fighting a losing battle. Once he took the sword, Ner'zhul relieved some of the pressure, giving Arthas the opening he needed to defeat Mal'ganis. Had he refused it, he would have been overwhelmed and killed, they they would have brought him back anyway. Probably with less independence, though Ner'zhul would have likely found some way to get Frostmourne into his hands either way. The end result may have been a bit weaker, but largely the same.

Arthas doomed himself and his soul at Stratholm. At that point, he sealed his fate and set himself firmly on the path to damnation.


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

[User]
CMV: Religious exemptions should not exist in US law or government regulation.

My argument boils down to a few simple points:

* Unless any religion can be claimed, including ones as outlandish as Scientology and Pastafarianism, or as rare as Zoroastrianism, then it is respecting an establishment of religion, ie only the religions the government recognizes as legitimate.

* It establishes religion over irreligion. An atheist person or a secular organization cannot make use of these exceptions.

* It devalues the laws or regulations religions are excempt from. Either something is necessary or it is not.

* It causes more harm than good. Several states allow for parents to kill their kids through neglect, as long as that neglect is rooted in religion.

This isn't the most well thought out post, but I can't think of any benefit of religious exemption that promotes the general welfare or equality.

[Assistant]
1) Freedom of Religion is literally part of the Bill of Rights. The Government has a duty to protect the right of the citizens to practice religion freely - though also a duty to not endorse any particular religion.

2) Almost all religious exceptions, also include Philosophical objections. Atheists can often also hop on the "religious exemption bandwagon" if they want to. These laws often don't exclude atheism.

3) The government cannot promote or endorse any particular religion, but it can acknowledge that religions exist. "Christianity exists" is not a statement which violates the separation of church and state.


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

[User]
Do woodpeckers get headaches?

As the title says, does the wood drilling have any health repercussions on a woodpecker? And also, is the skull built in such a way to prevent damages to the brain?
Thanks!

[Assistant] No. They have multiple and very cool physical adaptations that absorb and distribute the impact.  The beak is very sharp and carves the wood more so than hitting it like a hammer.  They still hit hard (if you hit your head against a tree with just 1/10th of their force, it would likely kill you), but the beaks cutting effect slows the forward motion as the beak enters the wood and lessens the blow as well as cartilage that softens/absorbs the impact.  The skull plates are not ossified together and slide along where they come together to absorb shock. The brain also differs from other birds - it is oriented to disperse the shock and more snugly secured within the skull, meaning there is less space around the brain so it sloshes less than ours.


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

[User]
ELI5: How much (aesthetically) will a child from one sperm vary from another?

In other words, of the millions (billions?) of sperm in the firehouse, how close in appearance would a child conceived between two sperm in the same.....load.....be if 1st and 2nd place to the egg were swapped. Got curious from the sperm over/underproduction ELI5.

[Assistant] There are a variety of factors that would effect the phenotype (physical traits) of a child from sperm to sperm. The most obvious one is of course that they could become either male or female. The next factor is the chromosomes they get from the father. There are 23 sets of chromosomes, two per set. This gives you 2^23 (~9 million) possible chromosome combinations that can be present in the sperm (including the variation of sex). Finally, there is a process called recombination, in which parts of chromosomes in a set will swap, leading to further variation. This gives huge variability  to the inherited traits from a father from sperm to sperm.


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

[User] Has the invention of shoes changed the anatomy of human feet?

[Assistant]
Possibly slightly, however they have had a much larger impact on the way we walk.

If you walk or run with shoes on you go heel to toe, but you dont do this barefoot since it hurts to slam your unprotected heel into the ground.

Behavior can change rapidly while anatomy must be influenced by evolution and its very slow, i think theres been some studies suggesting feet are getting smaller but any changes in the few thousands of years weve had shoes will be slight if any.


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

[User]
Why is there only one imaginary number?

If the square root of -1 is i, what about the square root of -2? Or -4? I know you can express all kinds of numbers as multiples of i, but we could express all kinds of numbers as multiples of 1, and we still have separate names and symbols for them.

Is it just for convenience? Or is there something special about the world of i?

(Didn't take math past high schoolso please bear with me.)

[Assistant]
There are *lots* of imaginary numbers. There is only one imaginary *unit* i, because we only need one - we can express all other imaginary numbers in terms of i.

For instance, (one of the) square roots of -2 can be written 2 i  (the other one is -2 i), and in this sense, we *do* have a separate name and symbol for each imaginary number.


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

[User]
[TLA] How did the Fire Nation fight the war for a hundred years without conscription?

Manpower had to be a serious issue for the Fire Nation; the Earth Kingdom is huge, after all, and the army had been taking losses against fierce resistance for decades, but it seems that the Fire Nation military is all volunteer.  How did they manage to get enough people to sign up?

[Assistant]
A martial culture where service is an honour. Painted as the highest duty and calling of all loyal sons and daughters for the Fire Nation. Ruled by a single family, playing off (or executing) factions against one another, they could act decisively as required.

They really didn't NEED that many people. The advance across the earth kingdom wasn't the meatgrinder of the trenches you'd see in WW1 and 2, but a slow, steady affair with regular consolidation, careful logistics and reinforcement. Colonies were established in the wake of the advance, providing additional manpower. Troops were regularly brought in from the home islands or other duties - naval or otherwise. The incredible offensive power of firebending meant that casualties were low. Most of their navy and war machines were metal and relatively high technology. Force multipliers abound.

Add in the Earth Kingdom - while the Fire Nation was politically unified, with martial traditions such as agni-kai holding legal weight, the EK was not. A far flung system of provinces with local lords and kings who were essentially autonomous. Their military was undertrained, outmatched technologically and large scale offensives were unknown because of this political divisiveness.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do so many news agencies cite Reuters stories for their information? What's so special about Reuters?

[Assistant]
Most outlets reporting news can't afford to have a presense around the world. So they have to get a lot of their coverage of global news from a few companies that have extensive global networks of reporters, such as Reuters and Associated Press.

As an example, for most of the year, your average newspaper doesn't need to have a reporter in Ethiopia or Tajikistan. But if something newsworthy happens there, they want to report it. So they'll get the story from Reuters reporter who's there and go from that.


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

[User]
Are there any notable "essentialist" philosophers?

I've often heard claims that can effectively be translated as  "essentialism is dead". Is this true, or does essentialism still have respectable defenders? Specifically, I'm looking for philosophers upholding an essentialist worldview, as opposed to a more existentialist one.

[Assistant] Essentialism has seen a revival in modern philosophy of science with the 'New Essentialism' movement. Brian Ellis has written several books on this topic, eg: *'The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism'* and *'Scientific Essentialism'*. David Odenberg's *'Real Essentialism'* may also be of interest to you.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do electronics break when they get wet?

[Assistant]
Electronics are very sensitive to the amount of electricity that each component receives.

When electronics get wet, the water conducts the electricity all over the place and zaps the components with voltages they are not designed to handle. Connections melt or burn.

Basically, it's like what happens when a ocean wave crashes in on top of a sand castle. It obliterates the subtle design needed to make it function.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is getting up early considered such a virtue?

[Assistant] It's largely a holdover from a time when things took a lot longer to get done, or when everything was manual. If you ran a bakery, you had to get up and do everything early - before machines, before large, easy refrigeration, before reliable ovens. That meant getting up early and taking a lot of time to get ready. For more agricultural societies, getting up early meant getting things *done*. Sleeping in meant work went undone which could potentially cause problems, especially for animals. So the ability to get up early was considered very reliable, since a lot of work called for it.


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

[User] [General Pornography] Is porn part of a shared, cinematic universe or is every scene a separate continuity?

[Assistant] It may not be one shared universe, but it's definitely an alternate universe from ours. A universe where aging happens more rapidly, causing teenagers to appear to be in their late 20s. And where people have much worse hearing and peripheral vision, leading to poor situational awareness.


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

[User]
How do the companies on earth farm/get neon gas?

I have tried to research it but all I found conflicting answers so I was wondering if anyone has a concise explanation of the process of gathering it?

[Assistant] Compress air, cool it down, compress more, cool more, eventually you can get the gas down to a temperature where it condenses into a liquid.  Different gases condense at different temperatures, so you can actually get them separated by being careful about the temperature at which you siphon off liquid.  It's also how they get liquid nitrogen, helium, oxygen for medical use, CO2 for soda fountains at restaurants, and so on.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it acceptable for beef to be pink in the center, but not poultry or pork?

[Assistant]
If handled properly during processing, beef and fish carry minimal risk of containing pathogens.  Damn near all of the US poultry population is infected with salmonella (especially by the time it makes it through a processing plant).  Meanwhile pork can have all kinds of nasties, considering the way pigs live and eat.

There are poultry populations in other countries that are pathogen free.  In France for instance, there are chicken breeds you can eat rare/medium rare.


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

[User]
[Rogue One] Could Vader have stopped everything if he just walked a bit faster in the end?

At the end of the film, where all the rebels on the ship rebels are getting their shit pushed in trying to keep Vader away from the data, he just kinda strolls up to them.

They couldn't have harmed the with any of their equipment, and he's more than capable of taking out more than one dude at a time. So, why didn't he?

It just seems like he wasn't trying.

[Assistant]
Look, Vader had to keep up an image. He had to show himself as a Immovable Invincible Fortress of Death.

Besides, he didn't really have a reason to be worried, everything would have worked out if a certain gunnery officer didn't want to save a turbolaser bolt.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Are other Hogwarts students having their own "off screen" adventures too? Or are their lives kinda boring with school & study ?

Obviously later in the series, all magic users are involved in the battles, but early in the series are other Hogwarts students having their own untold stories that we have never heard about? What's the day like for the average Hogwarts student who is not part of the main cast of characters?

[Assistant]
Depends on how you define "adventures." On par with Harry's fate-of-the-wizarding-world shenanigans? Generally not. Relative to the average British private school student? Definitely. Hogwarts is a magical school, you could walk through a random door and find yourself face-to-face with a Cerberus, a magical room full of everything everyone has ever tried to hide, or Madam Pince and Filch having a snog.

We do know that Harry is a bit self centered, and he really only pays attention to drama involving himself and his closest friends. It's probably fair to say there is plenty happening at Hogwarts Harry doesn't mention in his recollections, in addition to all of the goings-on that he doesn't know anything about.


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

[User]
Why is it so exceedingly difficult for us to think beyond capitalism? How have we come to embrace what one author has called capitalist realism? Why is it easier for us to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, to quote iek, or whoever it is that said it?

Some might say that this question belongs in an anthropological, sociological, historical or some other sub, but I disagree. I think it is a genuine philosophical question (which is not to say that philosophers shouldnt rely on sciences and humanities in dealing with it.) How have we come to this point?

EDIT: I must sincerely say that I havent expected so many (and substantive at that) replies.

****Thank you! I have already read Fishers book, merely for the record, and recommend it to everyone. I hope this thread will be as useful to others as it has been for me!****

[Assistant] As Fisher himself aptly pointed out, capital has a way of capturing all dissidence, monetizing it, and reproducing it as capital, such that it mutes actual dissidence. Refer back to his Wall-E reference earlier on in the book. Wall-E, a profoundly anti-capitalist movie, grossed millions and millions of dollars. It gave people the *feeling* of activism without requiring them to lift a finger. All they had to do was consume, take the point, feel vindicated for agreeing, and move on with their lives.


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

[User]
[Darkest Dungeon] What if we just burn the place?

So, Dear Uncle Wayne woke up a bunch of underground spooky murder beasts.  Seems a bit counterproductive to slowly kill everything just to wake up even spookier murder beasts.  I was thinking, why not just pump the dungeons full of napalm and set them on fire?  Surely if we have this wealth for excavations, we could also afford to evacuate the city and turn it into a molten crater.  Sure, some treasures down there will be lost, but the base metals, gold, and gems should survive, while the horrid tentacle things won't.

[Assistant] Well firstly you want to recover the estate, secondly you don't have that much money anymore, nor do we have napalm to flood it in. So we don't have the ability, nor the ability to gain the ability to burn the place down, and much of it is made of stone, and not wood. Thus we are left with a spreading evil across the land left in whats gonna be our badass house, and we got 4 dudes who wanna fight for us, so lets let them fight.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do computers get slower the longer you have them even if they arent damaged?

[Assistant]
Marginally they do get slower as you install more programs that want to keep running and as temp files and such build up.  But that sort of slow down is minor.

The feeling you get that your system, which used to be super speedy, is now chugging along is more that over time the software released keeps asking more from the hardware.  Windows gets more features, games want more cycles for logics, Word needs a GPU now so it can have pretty toolbars, etc.

So really the machine is just as fast as it was, the programs just become more demanding until it can no longer keep up.

Of course, sometimes you will have just installed terrible stuff that's eating all your processing but that's more of a virus / malware situation than normal "aging".


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

[User] [MCU] Strange listens to Stark in New York and retreats with the Time Stone, what changes?

[Assistant]
- Thanos spends less time, if any, dicking around on Titan, and jumps straight to the mind stone while Shuri is in the middle of working on Vision.  He's even *more* vulnerable there than he was in the movie, so Thanos likely grabs it right then and there.

- Eventually, Thanos ambushes Strange by popping in with the space stone and acquires the time stone.  Strange likely does his looking into the future thing for that one in a hundred million chance of winning, and picks that future.  It almost certainly still involves giving up the time stone to temporarily endure the snap, so nothing really changes.


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

[User]
ELI5 How do hotels decide what rooms to put guests in?

I have never understood how hotels decide guest placement in rooms. I feel like I'm always so far from the elevator or right next to another guest when the hotel is empty.

Is there logic behind it? Is it random? Am I overthinking the process?

[Assistant]
Kinda random kinda not.  Depends on the software, if the software exists, and the mood of the person handing out assignments.

Generally speaking, they'll honor requests if you bother to ask.  Some hate being so far from the elevators, others don't like the noise a central location like that has and will complain.  If they can make you happy they will, so don't hesitate to share your preference.

Hell, if you ask really nicely you can get the special suite at your previous rate if nobody else has called it.

So they take all the special requests like "Corner room", "Grouped Together","No Windows", "Smoking", "Near/Far [Whatever]" and make those fit as best they can given the dates with nobody changing rooms mid-stay.

The rest are just sprinkled in near randomly among that month's business philosophy like "Maximize Floor capacity to save housekeeping" or "Minimize floor density for sound complaints".

This all assumes there is some greater logic assigning rooms too, but in most discount hotels there's a serious chance that it's literally the first available room the attendant sees while you're filling out the forms.


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

[User] ELI5: What keeps water from getting in, or collecting in, our lungs during heavy fog or mist?

[Assistant]
>What keeps water from getting in, or collecting in, our lungs during heavy fog or mist?

Nothing.  Water does get in.  It coats the entire surface of the lungs.  However, lungs are always coated with moisture, so it's no big deal.  The moisture traps dirt and dust.  The surface of the lungs is covered with tiny hair-like structures called cilia.  The cilia move in waves and sweep excess moisture, dust, dirt, and foreign contaminants out of the lungs.  It all gets swept up into the throat to be swallowed and digested.


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

[User] [Starship Troopers] I like what the new Sky Marshal is doing and all the news vids say were winning, but Id like to know more. Are we humans actually winning against the bugs? Can we expect to conquer Klendathu soon?

[Assistant]
We are winning and that's a fact. But there's a whole lot of them and they are sneaky. So even though we're absolutely winning it may take a long time before they're all defeated. And we can't let up now or they'll start winning and then it'll be your fault. So sign up now and don't complain about the vast amount of money and materials going into the war machine.
Oh, and fascist martial law and such will definitely be lifted just as soon as we defeat the evil bugs.
Don't worry about it. Sign up today.


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

[User]
ELI5: If the metals in the American penny are worth more than a penny itself why don't people just convert all their money to pennies and sell them at a profit?

I've been hearing about and reading about the value of a 1 cent coin containing copper, which is increasing in value, worth more than 1 cent. If I exchange $100 and trade in for pennies wouldn't I have made money provided I can sell the coins as scrap?

[Assistant] It's illegal to destroy US currency, so you couldn't do it in an existing large plant. The costs of building and hiding a bunch of small ones would probably be much greater than any profit you could get.


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

[User]
ELI5: "Slammed" cars

I've seen cars many times that are extremely lowered, so much so that the car seems to set on the rim. The tires are even tilted outward most of the time. Do these guys just have to replace tires every ~500 miles? The cars seem so low that any sort of even bump would cause them  to bottom out? Can you explain the benefits of doing this or problems associated? Thanks!

[Assistant]
> Do these guys just have to replace tires every ~500 miles

Yup.

> The cars seem so low that any sort of even bump would cause them to bottom out?

Yup. (Although some are on airbags and can be raised to clear bumps)

> Can you explain the benefits of doing this or problems associated?

Benefits: Some people think it looks cool. When it's well done it can IMO.

Problems: All the stuff you mentioned, plus it wrecks the handling, fucks up the steering geometry, and leads to tons of excess wear on lots of parts. If done professionally these problems can be minimized, although a lot of these mods are done by  amateurs or shoddy shops. (All of the above is also true of lifted trucks.)


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

[User] ELI5 How do LEDs work?

[Assistant]
Electron goes in, photon comes out. You can't explain that!

More seriously, you know how there's glow-in-the-dark stuff? It works because electrons in the glow-in-the-dark powder can absorb photons from sunlight and go into high-energy states (they absorb and store energy) and sooner or later they go back to their low-energy states, releasing photons again.

LEDs are kinda the same thing but instead of using light to put electrons in high-energy states, electricity is used. We put electrons into one material where their normal state is relatively high energy, then they cross over a junction into another material where the normal state is lower, and they fall down into it releasing photons. To complete the circuit, a power source is needed to suck the electrons out of the second material and put them into the first.


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

[User] ELI5:What are the differences between kinds of businesses like LLC, LLP, and Incorporated?

[Assistant]
A solo proprietorship means the owner owns 100% and receives all profit but is also liable for all debts, including having to pay from his/her personal property of debts accumulate beyond what the business can pay.

A partnership is the same thing except profit and expenses are split between owners and they can all be held liable for debts, including beyond their own normal expenses - so if your partner racks up $100k in debt, the other partner may have to pay for it with their personal property.

Limited liability partnerships and corporations serve the same function but are designed so that the owner's personal property cannot be taken to pay off business debt. There are ownership and size restrictions for it to be considered limited liability, though.

A corporation fully protects its owners from being personally liable for the business' debt, it also provides some other protections because it is considered to be a unique unit. the cost however is that corporations are taxed on their income before any distributions to owners (which are then taxed as well) so it is a form of double taxation on income earned.


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

[User] When you restart a computer, after it shuts down, how does it know to start up again?

[Assistant]
When you restart, power to the Motherboard isn't actually cut off, so the bios just automatically boots the operating system.

I suppose the equivalent is getting in bed, closing your eyes, then getting out of bed again. You haven't actually fallen asleep, but it seems like you have.


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

[User]
What exactly happens when Polyurethane foam is formed?

I am currently doing my mechanical engineering dissertation on making structures using polyurethane foam, I have no background in chemistry and reading through many papers on polyurethane I find them hard to follow sometimes. I have searched through many papers to try and find what is going on but I cannot. Basically I have seen studies whereby the PU foam is formed within a vacuum, however in my experiments I have tried to form PU foam within a bag  and it does not expand anything like it does when open to the air. Can anyone explain what is going on and why air is needed? Or am I missing something ? I am using 2 part pour\-able foam.

TL:DR Polyurethane 2 part foam is not expanding properly when not exposed to air, why?

[Assistant]
Polyurethanes are actually a group of related polymers, so there's no single answer. But typically the foaming comes from the reaction forming a gas that then creates bubbles in the material as it sets. CO2 is the most common gas.

Some reactant mixtures will not release any gas, or they might release more gas if exposed to the atmosphere. It's possible your mix gets its foaming from isocyanate reacting with water to release CO2, and in that case perhaps atmospheric water can add more foaming.


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

[User] ELI5: If oil is near $40 a barrel why is gas still almost $3.00 a gallon in the US?

[Assistant]
100 students need blue crayons. And blue crayons cost 1 dollar from the store but you cannot buy them at the store. Someone in your class has a ton of blue crayons and sells them at $3.00.

Another guy also has crayons and wants to start selling. The new seller realizes that the people who first bought the crayon have already gotten back in line after they used up their crayon. Once he sees that both he and the original seller can sell crayons at $3.00 and still receive the same amount of customers the new guy doesn't have to compete to sell the same amount as the other guy.

Once demand is high enough (gas reaching a point of necessity) you don't need to lower your price.

Another factor is general population wealth. As some people have pointed out. California gas prices are way higher than middle-of-nowhere Nebraska. You can sell a guy who has $200 something for $20 but a guy who has $40 will only buy it if you sell it for $5.


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

[User]
How would a wild forest fire solve itself if humans arent here to intervene?

What would be the outcome?

[Assistant]
Simply put?  It burns until it runs out of fuel.  Or gets put out by rain or something.  That's literally it - absent an outside force like us to put it out, a forest fire just burns until it stops naturally.

Fully natural forests are typically far less prone to big, destructive wildfires, mostly because forests are supposed to naturally burn ALL THE TIME.  Lots of small flare-ups that consume dead brush, clear space for new growth, and in quite a few cases the fires are actually a vital part of some plants reproductive cycles.

We humans like to build things in the forest though, and we go to great lengths to keep them from periodically burning like they're supposed to do.  This results in badly managed forests that are massively overdue for a burn, so when they do eventually light up, they burn BIG.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] We have spells that can duplicate an object many times over. Is our entire economy based solely on trust?

Side question:  We have spells that can create objects and then duplicate those objects many times over.  Why do we even have an economy?  Why do we have rich and poor wizards when you can literally wave your wand around, chant some dog Latin, and solve all the same problems that money both creates *and* solves?

[Assistant] Duplicated objects don't last as long. More importantly, it's possible to tell they're duplicated and nobody cares about resources that aren't scarce, even though they're objectively almost identical to the scarce stuff. That's why natural diamonds sell for more than artificial diamonds. You can't solve the problem of social standing with magic, and even muggles have everything else down.


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

[User]
Can an educated patient with a rare disease present and publish self researched interventions?

I am not a scientist or healthcare professional. I do have a very rare genetic disease with no therapy or cure. I am university educated ( arts degrees) and self researched and applied lifestyle interventions that were unexpectedly successful. As I track all data regarding my interventions, my medical team and I, as first author, published an article this Spring.

As I am acting outside the standard of care for someone with my disease, albeit with proven success, my medical team has now backed away from further research collaboration for ethical and liability reasons. As an informed patient, I am not bound by the same ethical or professional constraints of my medical team. Over the past year, I have progressed the interventions, still outside the standard of care, and I would now like to independently present the results as an N=1 study at a Conference in June.

I am uncertain as to the appropriateness of this effort but feel very strongly that the research would be immensely valuable to other patients suffering with the same disease. Currently, there is no cure or therapy for this progressive and debilitating disease and my research might offer some hope for others.

Any academic advice on strategies for navigating through the publication process would be very much appreciated.

[Assistant]
Have you, as first author, and your medical team, as co-authors already published a case report in a peer-reviewed journal? Your post appears to indicate that you did so last spring.

If you've already get a paper out, even if it's a case report (that n = 1), then a conference is easier. Read up on the submission guidelines/requirements and prepare an abstract according to the req.


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

[User]
[LOTR] What are dragons, and how powerful are they?

Smaug could drive out the dwarves from a well defended mountain fortress, and the most powerful dragon's fire is capable of melting lesser Rings, but where do dragons stack up with other high tier LotR being like Maiar and Balrogs? Who created dragons and why?

[Assistant] There isn't a very good answer to this.  Tolkien was not precise when it comes to things like power levels and the like.  We are never told just how dragons were created but it was done by Sauron's old boss the original dark lord Morgoth in his evil fortress during the First Age.  One theory is that the first were Maiar put into flesh, basically evil version of the wizards that then had a bunch of kids. The Balrogs were Maiar that got stuck in that form as they became evil.  Falling from grace in Middle Earth means losing your shape shifting abilities.  From the circumstantial evidence we have, the dragons do seem to have done better fighting the Elves than Balrogs did, though both of them were certainly heavy hitters, and at least some balrogs took orders from the most powerful dragon.  Supporting that is the fact Morgoth made them because he was losing the war.  For Smaug, he was very powerful but almost certainly less so than his forefathers.  One of the main themes of the legendarium is that the world was in decline as it became less magical and more mundane.  Part of what made Aragorn so great was that he was a throwback to a better and more magical time for his people, even if he wasn't an eight foot tall orc slaughtering machine like the King that led the fight against Sauron in the Second Age.


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

[User]
CMV: Cancel culture is just the consequences of your words or actions in the Information Age. If youre complaining about it, then you either dont understand personal accountability or the free market.

Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter all began to blow up when I was in middle school, and from the very beginning my fellow students and I were hounded to be careful what we post online as it will be publicly recorded forever and there are consequences to negative actions. Nowadays when adults speak or act maliciously on the internet and are hounded by their peers via social media they act shocked and cry cancel culture. I know most problems with cancel culture arise when an individuals job is lost as the result of an unsavory public statement or action, but isnt the onus on the employer to make that decision only because of the employees decision to make their negative statement or have their negative actions aired in a public setting?

Edit: Im getting so many wonderful and well thought out responses, and while idk if Ill get to give out every deserved !delta, I genuinely appreciate the thoughtfulness and time going into every comment. As a quick response to those saying well gay people used to be seen as undesirable employees being a knobhead in a public forum or public setting is not an immutable characteristic like sexuality, gender, race, or deformities are.

Edit II: every individual that loses a job because they behaved in a way their superiors find negative to their company image can be replaced by an individual that behaves online in a manner considered appropriate and non-detrimental to the company image by the employer.

Im also not a libertarian, I just happen to exist in a country that has a free market economy (including a market of labor) as well as free speech. **What would be the alternative to the process of cancel culture in this system? Do you silence responses to a publicly shared opinion? Do you make is disliked by an online group a protected class?**

[Assistant]
Trudeau wore blackface 3 times and wasn't "cancelled" he still gets favorable media coverage he faced no consequences for any of his words nor actions (among them black face arguably doesn't even meet top 10 worst of)

Cancel culture is a political weapon nothing more, you only get cancelled if you have the wrong politics.


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

[User]
Why can't solid objects move through each other?

Atoms are mostly empty space. Ernest Rutherford proved this with his famous gold foil experiment - there is a small, positively charged nucleus (which deflected the positively charged alpha particles), and negatively charged electrons orbit the nucleus in fixed energy levels. This explains why the alpha particles were able to move through the gold foil but also why some were deflected or reflected; most passed through the atoms' empty space, some were repelled by their nuclei, and other collided directly with the nuclei. So why is it that I can't move my hand directly though a solid surface? Surely the rate of collisions between the atoms in my hand and the atoms in the table would be so low given the ratio of empty space to space occupied by sub-atomic particles that my hand should pass through with minimal resistance, and if anything would get stuck 'inside' the object.

Of course, states of matter are determined by intermolecular bonds, meaning that 'solid' in a scientific sense means that the molecules in an object are joined together strongly, usually with a regular arrangement. Since sub-atomic particles are not made up of molecules themselves (as they are the fundamental components of matter), why do they act as solids, and why can I not pass my hand through a solid object without resistance, given that the objects are in fact mostly empty space?

[Assistant]
The electron clouds around the nuclei in bulk solids repel each other.

Also, due to the Pauli Exclusion Principle, two identical electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state. By pushing two nuclei together, you overlap their electron clouds and therefore they reach a certain point where it is impossible to push them further to avoid violating this principle.

Extend this to a bulk solid and you should see why we can't push solid objects through one another.


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

[User] ELI5: What does a computer do when it "extracts" a zip or rar file? Where is it getting that extra data from?

[Assistant]
It's extracting the compressed data from within the zip file.  Compression attempts to store the same data in less space through clever math.

As an extremely basic example, say you wanted to compress this string of characters: "aaaaabbbbbcccccdddddeeeee".  Originally, the string is 25 characters long, but you could compress it to 10 by turning it into "a5b5c5d5e5".  A program that knows about this type of compression knows that "a5" decompresses into "aaaaa", but the program that originally created the file doesn't know what these 5s are about.  The computer needs to decompress or extract the string before that program is able to use it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] With all this jumping around in hyper space, some characters don't seem to age faster than others.

My grasp on actual knowledge of physics is slippery at best, but when reading the Ender's Game Saga, much of the story relied on the facts that when traveling near the speed of light, the passengers age slower than those remaining on a planet.  In Star Wars, someone can jump into Hyper Space do some things and then go back, and the passengers and the people they are returning to are the same age. Is Hyper Space just something different than traveling at the speed of light?

[Assistant]
Hyperspace isn't sub-light travel. It's a form of faster than light travel that involves moving through a different space-time dimension.

As far as relativity is concerned, you're not actually moving through conventional space-time, so no time dilation applies.


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

[User]
How to contact professors for research internships

I have tried contacting professors by cold-emailing them every time and if possible, calling their offices to know whether they do have internship positions available. However, I receive a one-in-a-million replies and mostly it redirects me to the university admissions page. Consistent e-mailing might be regarded as spam bombing What do you think is the best way to contact professors politely to ask for research internships?

[Assistant]
Your best bet is to ask your own professors if they have professional contacts in the field/location that you're interested in.

If you want more specific suggestions, you'll probably have to be more specific about your goals and background:

Are you contacting professors at your own university or elsewhere?  Are you trying to get an internship in your own country or abroad?  What country and subject are you in?


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

[User]
[X-Men Days of Future Past]Why did they need Magneto?

I feel like I've asked this, but I don't see it in my history, so maybe I thought I did, but why do they break Magneto out of the Pentagon (why is he even being held there anyways?)?  I mean I know he says in the future that they'll need his help, but they don't.  If anything he makes things worse!  Was he just assuming they would need his help?

[Assistant] I think the idea was that the only thing that could hope to get through to Raven was the two of them together. Either one on his own, it would just be like "yeah, whatever. I've got a midget to kill," but by going together, they could show her that what they were saying was so important that they had come together to say it to her.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why couldn't Voldemort or his Death Eaters be dispatched easily with sniper weapons or firearms? Bullet would surely reach their targets before they had any reasonable amount of time to react...

Protective spells AFAIK such as protego and others only work on protecting from attacks based on magic. Even if that wasn't a factor, offensive spells that use physical force to harm would pale in comparison to a heavy machine gun or any weapons that use explosive projectiles.

There's also the distinct advantage in the fact that Voldemort and people supporting him would never think to adopt it first and never expect it to be able to take them down. They would also be very hesitant to shift their tactics or adopt it to fight back.

Using muggle technology to defeat Voldemort would also be a perfect rebuttal to his claims of absolute magical-blood supremacy and superiority over muggles.

Good use of tech. like firearms could deal a brutally effective surprise first strike.  Mobile phones would allow his opponents to communicate with impunity and so on and so forth. If there is high level government complicity in allowing magical people to co-exist with muggles like the Ministry with the muggle Prime Minister, than arranging something like an air strike on the most dangerous dark wizard of all time doesn't seem too unreasonable either.

[Assistant]
Listen, kid. It's easy to say stuff like this, because in hindsight, it's seems obvious. But you just weren't there.

Wizards at the time didn't know much about firearms. Most were under the impression that the tech hadn't advanced much since the days of the Statute of Secrecy. Bullets fired by "flintlock pistols" are easily dodged by any decent fighting wizard, or could be caught by a quick spell to stop the metal ball.

The Magical community doesn't keep up with Muggle advances. It took us decades to appropriate cars, which are only in use for a couple of years.

> Using muggle technology to defeat Voldemort would also be a perfect rebuttal to his claims of absolute magical-blood supremacy and superiority over muggles.

Most wizards back then (and even now, unfortunately) don't think highly of Muggles, even if they didn't see a need to kill them. Muggles had the same rights as a cute pet.

Also note that a lot of tech you mention wasn't exactly available to the larger public during the First (or Second) Wizarding War.


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

[User] [Pacific Rim] Why is nuclear powered jaeger immune to EMP shockwave?

[Assistant] Because they have a frigging nuclear reactor in it, they need significant shielding to protect the pilots from the radiation (which even then apparently wasn't 100% effective). It stands to reason that this additional shielding that the plasma reactor-powered jaegers didn't have had the added bonus of being able to block a significant part of an EMP pulse.


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

[User] [Star Wars] The Old Republic had a powerful army, when and why was the republic demilitarized to the extent of the prequel republic?

[Assistant] About a thousand years before the films was when the last major war was fought, and was when the Sith were thought to have been destroyed. The Mandalorians tried to get a bit uppity a couple times in the interim, but the Republic glassing their home planet made them decide to calm down for a while.


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

[User]
[spongebob] Does Spongebob know that he annoys Squidward?

I remember two episodes in particular that make me think damn, SB is just a bully. The first one is where SB and Patrick take squid jellyfishing (dont remember why he even agreed to it but okay). Squidward gets God knows how many injuries inflicted on himself and *then*, when hes completely bandaged up, he gets stabbed by Patrick (I said firmly grasp it!). So then, at the end, Sponge and Patrick ask squidward, after hes allowed to leave the hospital, if hes still mad at them, and of course he is! The other one that resonates with me is the one where squid gives SB an injection that turns Sponge into a snail (a creepy snail). What does SpongeBob Snail pants do? He goes just next door to *harass* and torment Squidward! Really? And then he gets Squid changed too!.

Does Spongebob just *like* to be an annoying ass or am I overthinking a cartoon?

[Assistant]
He thinks they're friends. SpongeBob is aware that Squidward is generally grumpy, so he tries to impose his idea of fun onto Squidward in hopes that he'll come around and cheer up one day.

He likes Squidward, so he often wants to include him in his shenanigans.


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

[User]
CMV: Delivery people shouldn't be expected to deliver to houses with a barking dog on the loose.

If you can't keep your dog from intimidating others you shouldn't expect delivery staff to put themselves in harms way to deliver your shit.

"But muh puppy doesn't bite, he's just a loud barker"

Maybe with you, but the person delivering doesn't know that and even small breeds can break skin. Delivering is already a very stressful job with all the deadlines and physical aspect of it.

Here's another thing, do you seriously think that UPS or FedEx drivers have good health insurance? What if the person trips while running away from your dog? What of your dog does break some skin or gives PTSD to the delivery personn?

If you want to keep your loud ass dog on the loose, that's fine. But delivery workers should have the right to skip your delivery until they feel safe enough to do their job.

[Assistant] To challenge one point of your post, our contract at UPS provides the gold standard of health insurance for all American workers. Nobody gets better insurance. That said it falls on your own homeowners insurance if a worker is bit on your property and many will get a 6 figure payment if they sue you.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why objects that are interacted with in cartoons colored a slightly different color/shade than other objects in the scene.

For example: There are a bunch of cabinets, all essentially the same color, but the one that is opened is slightly different from the rest.

[Assistant]
Most of those cabinets are a background painting that the animator works on top of. The opened cabinet is a different color because it is being drawn by the animator and he's trying to match it the best he can.

(I paint those backgrounds for animated shows, by the way!)


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

[User]
What makes supernovas "explode"?

Hello AskSciencers!

My question is: What makes supernovas explode? I understand the general process after the star stops fusing hydrogen (it starts to fuse heavier elements, like helium). When the nuclear fusion starts producing Iron, which ruins the star's hydrostatic equilibrium and gravity becomes the major force at work. At this point is what I want to know: When the star collapses due to lack of the hydrostatic equlibrium, what makes it explode?

[Assistant]
There are numerous different types of supernovae, though generally they fall into a few broad categories: core collapse and fusion runaway. For core collapse supernovae the stellar remnant left behind is either a neutron star or a black hole. Fusion runaway supernovae typically obliterate their stars, leaving behind only the supernova explosion remnant nebula of gas.

The classic fusion runaway supernova is the Type Ia, which involves a white dwarf star (the core of a dead giant star made up out of typically Carbon/Oxygen matter under electron degeneracy pressures) acquiring more matter (such as from a companion star). This causes a sequence of different things to happen, some of which take a long time (hundreds or thousands of years) but the end result is that the temperature in the core rises high enough to enable fusion of the remaining elements there. But because the core is under electron degeneracy conditions it cannot go through the typical negative feedback process inside a normal star's core which causes increasing pressure to result in expansion which then counteracts the temperature increase and maintains a somewhat steady state of fusion. So instead there's a positive feedback loop, fusion releases energy which increases temperature, which increases the rate of fusion, etc. In a matter of seconds enough fusion reactions have occurred to release enough energy to gravitationally unbind the star, and it explodes, leaving only gas and dust behind. At first the supernova is bright due to the temperature of the core fragments, later it is bright due to energy from the radioactive decay of Nickel-56 (recently created via fusion) which has a half-life of only about 6 days.

There are other ways that this fusion feedback loop can be broken. In supermassive stars the temperature can get so hot that the light from the "glow" of the matter in the core (which is at millions upon millions of degrees) actually reaches into the gamma-ray spectrum. At a high enough temperature some of the thermal photons have enough energy to create electron-positron pairs inside the core, which they do. The positron is quickly annihilated, but the time the thermal energy spent as electron and positron particles reduced the photon pressure inside the core just slightly. Which means that as the core heats up from additional fusion reactions more and more of the thermal glow spends time as electron-positron pairs, further fighting against the thermal stabilization feedback loop and at some point a tipping point is reached where fusion reaction rates feed on themselves and then in a matter of only seconds enough energy is released to destroy the star (even though in this case it's a much more massive star). This is called a pair-instability supernova.

In intermediate mass stars (> 8 solar masses or so) there can be a more standard "Type II" core collapse supernova. At the end of the star's life it begins fusing Silicon into Nickel-56 (though not in a runaway process), which takes around 5 days or so. After which the core of the star is Nickel and Iron (from the decay of some of the Nickel-56). At this point no more fusion reactions can occur, so the opposite part of the feedback loop is broken compared to the fusion runaway supernovae. Normally increasing pressure in the core would raise fusion rates, which would release energy, raise temperatures, and cause an expansion that keeps collapse in check. The matter then progresses toward electron degeneracy conditions (the highest pressure normal atomic matter can hold). At some point the mass of the electron degenerate core crosses a threshold (the Chandresekhar limit of about 1.4 solar masses) and then collapses. Electrons are forced into fusing with protons, forming neutrons and releasing high energy anti-electron neutrinos. The Nickel/Iron core of the star collapses into a much denser neutron star. The surface of the core collapses at a significant fraction of the speed of light. The remaining envelope of the star follows the collapse like a landslide, then it rams into the surface of the neutron star (which is held up by neutron degeneracy pressure, and basically immovable to the envelope of the star) and then bounces off. This alone is not enough to cause a supernova explosion, but at the same time a ghostly wave of neutrino radiation emanates from the newly formed neutron star, the product of all those electron+proton fusion reactions. Neutrinos interact with matter only extremely rarely, but there are on the order of 10^57 neutrinos collectively carrying 10^46 Joules of energy (over a trillion quadrillion teratons of explosive power) or roughly as much as a trillion years' worth of the Sun's radiative power (even though it will live only a fraction as long). Only about 1% of this energy is deposited in the envelope of the dying star as the neutron wind passes through but this is more than enough to raise its temperature high enough so that its components have escape velocity. The result being that the envelope explodes outwards, and then will continue to glow for days as the radioactive decay energy from the Nickel-56 takes over. The remnant left behind can be a pulsar, a neutron star with hyper accelerated rotation (due to shrinking in size) and extremely strong magnetic fields which beams powerful radio signals across the Universe. Under various conditions the supernova can stall or fall back on the neutron star, leaving behind a black hole instead.

In the very most massive stars, even more massive than those which undergo pair-instability supernovae, the thermal glow inside the core can reach such an extreme that photons actually have enough energy to blast apart atomic nuclei in a process called photodisintegration. This process absorbs energy from the photons and again breaks that heat/radiation/pressure feedback loop which keeps fusion reactions and collapse in check. The core simply collapses, forming a black hole surrounded by extremely energetic and ultradense matter which attempts to fall into the black hole but is subjected to conditions which cause the formation of an accretion disk and relativistic jets along the axis of rotation of the black hole/star. These are called hypernovae and are responsible for some types of gamma ray bursts that can still be quite bright even across significant fractions of the entire visible Universe.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the confederate flag, is it "racist"?

I'm not American so I'm not sure exactly what the flag stands for, I just know some people consider it racist.

[Assistant]
The flag you see on top of the Dukes' of Hazzard car, what most people call the Confederate Flag these days, was one of several battle flags used by southern forces during the Civil War. If that was the last time it was used, it would bear no more than a lingering whiff of racism and be mostly unknown to the general public. However, in the 50s and 60s that flag was adopted by Klan groups, white supremacists, segregationists, and general racists in their fight against black civil rights.

It's just a St. Andrew's cross and some stars, but the racists of the 20th century took it as their symbol, and their symbol it remains. People try to reuse it, at times it's seen as campy or ironic, but it's like a swastika. The stain remains.


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

[User]
ELI5: If heat travels in space, why do we think things close to the Sun still freeze?

I'm reading Apollo 13, and they keep talking about how they need to be careful of the Sun overheating their ship on the way to the Moon. But in so many movies and media, it all shows people/objects/water freezing in the vacuum of space. Why does the ship need to be protected if things are freezing?

Edit: I think I get it - radiation causes things in view of the Sun to still heat up, and things not facing the sun freeze in the vacuum.

With liquids in a vacuum, they boil, giving off heat until they have no heat left, and then they freeze. A person would do the same - our body would try to exert as much heat as possible, which would cause us to overheat, but then we'd run out of heat, and freeze. If any part of us was close to the Sun (like how close the Earth or Moon is), that would also overheat due to radiation, and burn. Is that right?

[Assistant]
What travels through space is electromagnetic energy. Visible light, heat (infrared), radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays...all of these are different kinds of electromagnetic energy.

A ship in space near Earth will get hot from the sunlight just like stuff on earth gets hot when you leave it out in the sun. The object absorbs the energy coming from the sun and it becomes heat (infrared).

But here's the tricky thing. Here on earth, we see that hot objects will cool down pretty quickly if you just leave it in a cooler place. The heat leaves as both infrared radiation (like if you hold your hand close to something hot and feel its warmth, that's infrared), and also through conduction into other things. Everything is surrounded by air which will take in some heat, and so will the surface that the hot thing sits on (like when a hot mug of tea makes the table warm.)

In space, there is no air or table. So the ship still radiates infrared like anything else, but but it can't also conduct heat away into other stuff. As long as the ship is fairly close to the sun, it will need to use reflectors and rotating parts to keep to stay cool.

But the farther you go from the sun, the weaker its energy is. At some point, the ship will radiate out its heat faster than the sun warms it. So in this case, the ship will need a source of heat on board to compensate.

Without an internal heat source, anything that loses heat faster than it gets warmed by the sun will indeed freeze.


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

[User]
[The Terminal 2003]What would have happened if Viktor decided to sustain himself by just stealing from the shops in the air port?

It seems like they can't just get rid of him by having him arrested. If they could why wouldn't they have arrested him for vandalism when he started doing stuff like building fountains?

[Assistant] JFK airport almost definitely has a police station on site. He'd just be arrested and held in the cells there for a bit before realizing what a paperwork nightmare they'd have to go through processing a non-citizen of a non-existent country, just like Customs was supposed to deal with. The easier option, and the one taken by Customs, is just to ignore him unless he really causes trouble.