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Saturday, October 13, 2018

How does stickyness work?

How does stickyness work?

How does stickyness work?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 03:42 PM PDT

What is the smallest yield possible of a nuke?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 01:13 PM PDT

What if all the planets in our solar system, except for Earth, vanished? Would Earth get closer to the sun or further away?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 03:01 PM PDT

How useful is the mean deviation? Is its disuse more a result of historical accident or mathematical necessity?

Posted: 13 Oct 2018 02:50 AM PDT

So the standard deviation (and variance, as a package deal) is the go-to measure of spread in statistics, but there's also the mean deviation - the mean absolute distance from the mean, i.e. sum(abs(x-xbar))/n.

I've read somewhere that there was disagreement in statistics early on over which was the most useful of the two measures. That the standard deviation won out is obvious, but I'd like to know if things could've been different. Is it possible to express, for example, the formula for normal density distribution in terms of the mean deviation? Is it possible (whether or not it's practical) to reconstruct the linear model, or something like it, using mean deviation? What about something akin to Anova?

I'm interested partly because I find mean deviation much more intuitive than standard deviation, and I'd like to know how angry I should be over how the history of statistics turned out.

submitted by /u/mabolle
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Are there any chemicals so deadly a mere drop on skin could kill?

Posted: 13 Oct 2018 07:46 AM PDT

My grandpa (a known story stretcher) told me he used to haul tankers full of this chemical. It was supposed to absorb really fast and that it was so deadly a drop on your skin would kill you in a minute or two. It was used in the production of tires. He said it was phenol but phenol doesn't match up with his description. He's told me this story since I was a kid but now at 23 I'm curious as to if there are any chemicals that deadly and what they would possibly be used for.

submitted by /u/kraybae
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Are freckles patterned into your DNA, or if you "replaced" your skin, would freckles appear in a new pattern?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 03:05 PM PDT

As a filthy ginger who is covered in freckles (well, arms and shoulders, anyways), it's something I've always kind of wondered but always seemed too dumb to ask.

If for some reason, you had a patch of skin that was removed and healed naturally, would your freckles appear in the same spots as before? Or would they appear in a new pattern?

I'll suppose I'll take this a step further and ask, is there any legitimate way we might be able to remove freckles? Or at least the appearance of them?

submitted by /u/Jcorb
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Why do neutron stars have magnetic fields?

Posted: 13 Oct 2018 08:11 AM PDT

Wouldn't they be neutral and not have any charge/magnetic field?

submitted by /u/Defence_of_the_Anus
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When building roads through deserts with changing sand dunes, how does the foundation differ from "ordinary" roads?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 03:20 PM PDT

I saw this picture on r/natureisfuckinglit and I'm curious how engineers deal with this kind of environment. https://i.redd.it/wmtgej1zqrr11.jpg

submitted by /u/anotherUN2remember
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Why does hot water sound different when it's poured?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 07:58 PM PDT

Can an electron in an atom be exchanged with another lepton? And how does the radius of the atom change afterwards?

Posted: 13 Oct 2018 03:59 AM PDT

What causes someone to be an asymptomatic carrier instead of experiencing diseases full-on?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 07:40 PM PDT

Is it a strong immune system? A genetic or physiological component? Or just plain luck?

submitted by /u/kermit2014
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Is there a moon in our solar system that is always visible from some point on its planet?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 04:20 PM PDT

Assuming clear skies on the planet.

submitted by /u/harshlax94
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Do hurricanes making landfall bring sea water in as rain? How does this affect soil, crops, infrastructure etc compared to normal rain?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 08:05 AM PDT

Is a virus alive or something that is not alive? What is in a flu shot?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 11:42 AM PDT

Years ago in school, my science class book stated that viruses were smaller than bacteria and not alive. If I remember correctly that is. If it is not alive how do you kill a virus?

​

I am told that a flu shot is a dead virus given to your body. Is it dead or just a small portion of the virus?

submitted by /u/Victoryia
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Why is there a Monoclinic C lattice but no monocline A lattice?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 08:39 PM PDT

Is it just because of naming convention that we prefer to use C over A (and also B)?

submitted by /u/BrokenSoil
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Is there an upper limit on how massive a rocky astronomical body can be without being spherical?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 04:32 PM PDT

How do horses and other animals see directly in front of them when their eyes are on the side of their head?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 12:23 PM PDT

As the title suggests how do animals with eyes on the side of their head see whats directly in front of them

submitted by /u/ItssBubbles_Pb
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Can you graphically display sound fields?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 06:13 PM PDT

Can you convert sound waves into graphic representations based on strength and location?

submitted by /u/cleidle
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Why are the pixels on our screens squares?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 12:03 PM PDT

Why not triangles or hexagons?

submitted by /u/PieterjanVDHD
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Why is the moon moving away from earth?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 11:52 AM PDT

I understand that moon creating tides on earth is losing its energy and that should slow down the moon orbiting around earth. But shouldn't that result in the moon dropping to a lower orbit as the gravitational force between earth and moon can pool them towards each other easier with the moon slowing down?

submitted by /u/melector
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Oil based product that the sulfur has precipitated. What does this mean and why did a normally Viscous liquid turn semi solid?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 05:06 PM PDT

Why not point the most powerful telescope at the moon and look at Armstrong's footprints?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 08:50 AM PDT

Edit: not related to any conspiracy. Just wondering.

submitted by /u/JRzhutou
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Friday, October 12, 2018

I’ve been perusing Wikipedia pages on hurricanes after Michael and have found detailed accounts of hurricane development for storms back in the late 1800s. How were these accounts recorded and/or constructed?

I’ve been perusing Wikipedia pages on hurricanes after Michael and have found detailed accounts of hurricane development for storms back in the late 1800s. How were these accounts recorded and/or constructed?

I’ve been perusing Wikipedia pages on hurricanes after Michael and have found detailed accounts of hurricane development for storms back in the late 1800s. How were these accounts recorded and/or constructed?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 08:55 PM PDT

Carbon dioxide poisoning through plants?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 03:54 AM PDT

Someone told me today that it is not safe to sleep in a room that has plants in it because they produce carbon dioxide at night. Is it possible to suffer long-term damages from this?

submitted by /u/shiksen
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How does a zip file work?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 02:14 PM PDT

Like, how can there be a lot of data and then compressed and THEN decompressed again on another computer?

submitted by /u/Coffeecat3
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Do cuttlefish exhibit social traits which results in them acquiring colours/shapes unique to their local population, like a dialect?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 03:00 PM PDT

What is the "resolution" of our hearing?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 11:01 PM PDT

Hello! I was thinking that if there is some background noise at some X dB, then what would the sound level have to be in order for a sound to be just barely audible? Also, does this limit depend on the frequency of the sound, and if so, in what way?

submitted by /u/Maldoor
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Potiental Energy in Gases? Chem/Phys

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 05:53 AM PDT

As seperation between particles increases, potiental energy increases-this doesnt make sense to me-how is a gas all kinetic energy then?

From what I understand-as material is heated up, particles move further-increasing the total potential energy b/c intermolecular bonds are broken

submitted by /u/AsianPineappl3
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Which part of the hurricane has the highest wind speed, is it closer to the eye? Or more towards the edge of the hurricane.

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 09:12 PM PDT

What leads to the figure of trillions of elementary particles that pass through us every second?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 01:16 PM PDT

One square centimeter of mass observed on Earth is ghosted by 64 billion neutrinos a second. How do we conclude from a neutrino detector that observes about 30 neutrinos a day, figure to trillions that pass through us every second?

submitted by /u/Xerxox_0002
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Did the proto versions of octopus and bird beaks look similar, or did they come from different looking structures that just happened to converge into a similar looking one?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 07:04 PM PDT

Is this example of convergent evolution a result of different structures becoming similar? Did the proto bird and the proto octopus have completely different ways of eating than they do now?

submitted by /u/hatsolotl
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If light has no mass how is it affected by gravity?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 01:57 AM PDT

For example how can light not escape a black hole even though it has no mass

submitted by /u/_Phish
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Even with all the technology we have today and all the current discoveries we make about climate change, what makes telling the weather accurately such a hard feat to accomplish?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 06:04 PM PDT

Do elementary particles have an event horizon?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 03:36 PM PDT

Elementary particles are defined as infinitely small points in quantum field theory. If particles are infinitely small, and those particles have mass, like an up quark for instance, then why don't they collapse into black holes? All of their mass lies within their schwarzschild radius. Is it because the up quark's electric charge spreads the energy of the particle over a larger amount of space, thusly making some of the particles mass lie outside the schwarzschild radius? If that is why then why do particles without charge not have event horizons?

I'm not really sure if the possible solutions/problems made any sense, but weather or not particles have event horizons interests me and I would appreciate it if someone could direct me to somewhere that could explain it, thanks.

submitted by /u/The_Telescreen
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Why does it take energy to hold you arm up for extended periods of time, but a rigid object can stay standing with no energy input?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 07:18 PM PDT

What keeps your pants up?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 08:29 PM PDT

I'm interested in the math that's involved. My limited background in physics and engineering isn't enough for me to understand how. A free body diagram of the problem with my knowledge doesn't add up. What exactly is the physics involved?

Assuming no belt involved.

submitted by /u/soul_power
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Why does our oxygen level control the colour of our atmosphere?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 12:22 PM PDT

Our oxygen level is at 210,000ppm. This makes our atmosphere blue. If we had less oxygen, our atmosphere would be red. If we had more oxygen , our atmosphere would be yellow.

Why?

submitted by /u/Yernanwasgoodlike
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How do scientist take pictures and videos of incredibly microscopic things?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 02:10 PM PDT

I was going through the Nikon Small World competition and was baffled by how scientist were able to produce their videos. Thing first place video was of a zebrafish embryo growing its elaborate sensory nervous system

submitted by /u/pooptyscoopty
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Do we know what criteria ants look for when creating a new hive? What determines hill size and shape?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 11:43 AM PDT

Also, how many hills does one hive normally have? Does destroying one have any long term effects?

submitted by /u/208327
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Why are thermoplastic polymers more easily recycled than thermosetting polymers?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 02:11 PM PDT

I've read that thermoplastics can be recycled but their properties degrade in the process (why?)

Thermosettings are hard to recycle but I don't get exactly why?

submitted by /u/Sarroth
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How can lightning strike the same spot in the same shape multiple times?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 08:06 PM PDT

Just from observing it seems to me like lightning strikes are chaotic and random (in shape and size) and it bewilders me that lightning can form the exact same shape more than once. I guess what I'm trying to ask is what are the environmental factors that determine the size and shape of a lightning strike and how can it possibly be duplicated?example video (13 seconds in)

submitted by /u/jonahcicon
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What is the environmental impact of data storage?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 07:33 AM PDT

With so many people taking many, many awful photographs in an attempt to get that perfect Instagram shot (among many other banal reasons for taking ao many photos)… is there any environmental impact from the huge amount of data that humans upload to servers every single day?

submitted by /u/incredijen
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If you make a nuclear weapon with a small blast wave would it still produce a mushroom cloud ?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 11:33 AM PDT

How is energy conserved in wave interference?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 12:28 PM PDT

Whilst reading a pop science book on physics and metal, I got to wondering where does the energy go in destructive interference. It had a bit on this in the appendix, which mentioned:

A) you have to consider the energy globally for energy conservation to apply. Fair enough i understand this

But that doesn't explain what if the sources are as close as possible to one another.

B) The oscillators will be coupled in such a way as to require more/less energy.

The book referencing a 2014 paper on it, and says to quote:

The resolution lies in realising what happens when 2 sources get so close together than their separation is lower than the wavelength of the wave... what happens under those is that the two sources are coupled together- one affects the other...

But then consider this:

EDIT: The lasers are just a placeholder here for an ideal wave restricted to a line. I am aware real lasers aren't like this.

We set up 2 identical lasers, their beams have a power 'E', very far away from one another. And these have been placed in such a way as to be aligned and all that jazz so that the light they emit is aimed at the other perfectly (so that their beams will interfere).

Now we get the lasers to fire simultaneously. The laser beams go forth and at the midpoint they meet. They interfere, so the wave has power of 4E (as power is proportional to the square of amplitude, which just adds linearly no?). But because the source of the laser beam is so far away, they are not yet causally connected. So how can they couple to explain the extra energy from 2 laser beams, if there is no non FTL way for the lasers source to communicate that they are on even?

submitted by /u/SomewithCheese
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Thursday, October 11, 2018

In the graphic of Earth's energy budget, the outgoing thermal radiation is greater than the incoming, why is that?

In the graphic of Earth's energy budget, the outgoing thermal radiation is greater than the incoming, why is that?

In the graphic of Earth's energy budget, the outgoing thermal radiation is greater than the incoming, why is that?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 05:00 AM PDT

I'm referring to this graphic, the incoming radiation absorbed by the surface, how can the energy emitted by the surface be greater than this? How is the energy amplified, isn't it a violation of the 1st law of thermodynamics? I'm sorry, this is a stupid question, I just couldn't find anything online why it is higher.

submitted by /u/curiouzguy_69
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why is it that it is mostly in musical media that we misshear lyrics, aka mondegrains, and not as much in regular spoken discourse?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 06:37 AM PDT

Is there an opposite period to an ice age?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 05:52 PM PDT

Would it be a greenhouse age? And would we be heading to warmer temperatures regardless if global warming was occurring?

submitted by /u/Zaxhary
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Einstein replaced gravitational forces with a curvature in spacetime. What happens when you follow the same process, but with electrostatic forces?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 01:44 PM PDT

Okay, let's start simple: If the world only consisted of positively charged particles and the electrostatic force was attractive, surely we could follow the same process that led Einstein to his view on spacetime, right? It's just a matter of substituting masses with (positive) charges and gravitational constants with electrostatic ones.

Now let's drop the "assumption" of an attractive electrostatic force, but keep the world with only positive particles. To me it seems like this is not that different. Of course, the behaviour of particles would totally change, but instead of moving closer together positive particles just tend to move away from each other. Could we still describe this similarly to the curvature of spacetime due to mass?

As a last step, we have to allow negatively charged particles into our imaginary world. Intuitively, I'd say this is the most difficult step, and since we don't have a unified theroy, I don't think we can do this (yet), right?

submitted by /u/SendMeOrangeLetters
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If beaches are mostly sand, how does the mainland of any island or country support itself?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 04:22 AM PDT

Is it possible to predict how quickly individual words will change, e.g. can we roughly predict how long it will take until 'affect' disappears from the English language?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 02:00 PM PDT

What is a GEO satellite's position on its analemma called?

Posted: 11 Oct 2018 02:12 AM PDT

I work in communications management for the military. While I understand most of the basics, SATCOM is still one of my weak areas. My team was explaining to me the importance of hitting a satellite while it's on its "zero point", which allows us to maintain good signal strength on the satellite without having to adjust the antenna every few hours as it moves on its analemma. If we hit the satellite when it's on one of the extreme points of the analemma, we lose sat lock and have to do another peek and poll to find it again, which is why it's best to get it at its zero. They told me this data is (at least for commercial satellites) almost always available for look up as the path the satellite traverses rarely changes. They mentioned what they think the data is called but a quick google search returned zero results. They called it something that sounded like "infemeris data". I'm just curious at this point if there is a specific name for this data so I can hold onto this knowledge. Thanks!

submitted by /u/stinkycash
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Why does water expand when it cools instead of shrinking?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 05:58 PM PDT

Every other element else that goes through a negative enthalpy change shrinks in volume so why doesn't ice?

submitted by /u/nintendongg
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Can a hydrogen atom have more than two electrons at a given time?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 08:49 AM PDT

We know that that hydrogen usually has only one electron in its outer shell but can hold two, hence why it's fairly reactive, in order to bond with other elements and get the second electron. But now another question bugs me: can we tack on more electrons? If so, what would happen?

submitted by /u/SomeRandomPerson33
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When galaxies collide do the gasses cause vortices or other “weather” patterns?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 11:52 AM PDT

Can old plastics spontaneously explode?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 09:53 AM PDT

I was listening to the 99% Invisible podcast, at about 19:30 someone (Emma McClendon?) says the following (my transcription, please forgive any errors).

I did a few Google searches but couldn't find anything more.

"This is what people need to realize, plastics sometimes age in such a way that they are attempting to go back to a gas or they want to go back to a liquid.

So that means that if you feel your sneaker sole that you've had for a really long time begins to stick to the floor you should get rid of it because it is what we would call weeping or other terminology. It's going back to it's liquid state. It's toxic, you don't want to touch it.

Same with something if you keep a plastic comb or barrette or a Tupperware container, you never know, in an airtight drawer, say you don't open it for years, and then you open it and you find shards it means that it exploded. It literally combusted at some point and you will smell it. These things are giving off noxious fumes.

And again we don't tend to see this because we see plastic as disposable but that's what this stuff is doing in these landfills."

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/blue-jeans-articles-of-interest-5/

submitted by /u/Cr3X1eUZ
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Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 08:11 AM PDT

Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology

Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".

Asking Questions:

Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions.

The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.

Answering Questions:

Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.

If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here.

Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here.

Ask away!

submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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How Does Medication travel to parts of the body that are in pain/wounded and not get mix signals and travel somewhere else?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 09:19 AM PDT

How do we know there's not another Earth, exactly the same distance from sun as we are, but 180 degrees out of phase in its orbit?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 11:02 AM PDT

It would never appear in the night sky (or the day sky!), and its gravitational pull would be in exactly the same direction as the sun. Would we have to go out there and check? Have we checked?

submitted by /u/sumdr
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Does “fast charging” or “slow charging” actually effect the duration of a battery charge?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 11:52 AM PDT

Mainly referring to charging him of cell phone batteries. House chargers (which charge slower) vs car chargers (charge faster). Using today's current batteries as the battery of interest.

submitted by /u/Funkytown1177
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How powerful are modern quantum computers?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 11:50 AM PDT

I remember shortly after the development of quantum computers began they were having trouble performing simple arithmetic. How powerful is quantum computing now that there has been significant research over the past several years?

I saw this nature paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-33125-3#Abs1) talking about how a quantum computer was used to simulate basic artificial lifeforms, which sparked my question because I wasn't aware we could do such things with them.

submitted by /u/AndMyAxe123
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Why does peanut butter breakdown chewing gum?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 06:28 AM PDT

Does Norton's Dome prove indeterminism in Newtonian mechanics?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 11:18 AM PDT

Or is the solution given in the paper ( r(t) = 0 for t<=0 and r(t)=(t-T)4 /144 for t=>0 ) simply invalid, because it is discontinuous for d4 r(0)/dt4 ?

Link to the paper: https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/Dome/&ved=2ahUKEwiA3PTXvPzdAhURblAKHarxCh4QFjACegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2ez3-ql0OeiMr0m52RWXEB

submitted by /u/Beren--Erchamion
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How reliable is Doppler Radar velocity data for estimating surface winds for a Tropical Cyclone?

Posted: 10 Oct 2018 10:40 AM PDT

As Hurricane Michael is currently making landfall on the panhandled Florida, Doppler Radar from Elgin AFB has shown some velocity readings near 165 mph or greater. I know this is not true surface measurements, but how does it compare?

submitted by /u/howardcord
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