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What does “spin” mean in electron physics? Is it rotation?
The electron is not actually spinning, but some magnetic properties of the electron are what you would expect if it were spinning.
The electron is not actually spinning, but some magnetic properties of the electron are what you would expect if it were spinning.
See lessWhy Aren’t Sherpa Endurance Athletes Dominating Marathons?
Being an "athlete" takes more than physical skill. By definition an athlete is a person that *competes* in sport competitions. To compete in an ultramarathon, you have to live somewhere that offers you the opportunity to run the race (not a lot of ultramarathons planned for the Himalayan Mountains oRead more
Being an “athlete” takes more than physical skill.
By definition an athlete is a person that *competes* in sport competitions.
To compete in an ultramarathon, you have to live somewhere that offers you the opportunity to run the race (not a lot of ultramarathons planned for the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal!!) OR be able to afford to travel to those places.
On top of that you need the *time* to train and — because training takes that time — you also need the *financial freedom or support* to train (instead of working) and to acquire equipment, coaching, etc.
Neither the Sherpa people, nor the porters that make their living supporting Everest climbers (who are frequently but not always ethnically Sherpa people — which is where the profession named “sherpa” comes from), nor the Nepales people in general — none of those groups are very wealthy. Few have the means or support to afford the luxury of athletic competition as a profession.
See lessELI5: Why must the captain go down with the ship?
The captain is responsible for ensuring everyone else on the boat gets off safely *before* the captain does. They don’t really “go down with the ship”, it’s just a saying to imply that they’re the last ones to leave. Case in point: the Costa Concordia disaster where the captain did leave early and wRead more
The captain is responsible for ensuring everyone else on the boat gets off safely *before* the captain does.
They don’t really “go down with the ship”, it’s just a saying to imply that they’re the last ones to leave.
Case in point: the Costa Concordia disaster where the captain did leave early and went to jail for manslaughter
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster
See lessWhy are tech layoffs persisting despite industry success?
There's a few reasons, but the big reason is investors not seeing growth wanted other ways to improve profit margins. Arguably many companies were also over-staffed due to various moonshot projects, many of which were rolled back.
There’s a few reasons, but the big reason is investors not seeing growth wanted other ways to improve profit margins. Arguably many companies were also over-staffed due to various moonshot projects, many of which were rolled back.
See lessWhy Did USB Have Many Variants, and Can USB-C Replace Them?
Let's start at the very beginning. USB *actually* started off with just 2 variants: USB-A and USB-B. The idea was that a USB cable would *always* have USB-A on one end, and USB-B on the other. The USB-A side would be the one to say "I'm here!" and send out power. The USB-B side would just wait and dRead more
Let’s start at the very beginning. USB *actually* started off with just 2 variants: USB-A and USB-B. The idea was that a USB cable would *always* have USB-A on one end, and USB-B on the other. The USB-A side would be the one to say “I’m here!” and send out power. The USB-B side would just wait and do nothing until it got suitable communications from the USB-A side. The nice part of this is that it makes everything really simple. If you’re on the USB-A side, you don’t have to do the work to try and see if anyone is trying to talk to you. If you’re the USB-B side, you don’t have to know how to start conversations. You also don’t have to worry about power coming in when you’re trying to send it out. Back in 1995, keeping it simple like this was good – we will come back to this.
These connectors were made in 1995, for the relatively large machines of the time – thick laptops and desktop computers with plenty of room. So, making them large wasn’t an issue, your peripherals would generally be relatively large too or have the cable built in.
Then, devices started getting smaller. They introduced a new, smaller connector, “mini USB”. They made a mini version of USB A and USB B. The wires were the same, just the plug was smaller. This wasn’t small enough for a lot of uses, so they wanted to make it even smaller – and they did, introducing micro USB, which was even *smaller* and had micro A and micro B
Then, they wanted to make an even faster version of USB… But the wires they had just couldn’t take it. The first versions of USB had just four wires, and only two of them carried data, not great. So they needed to add more wires… But most of the connectors were just too small! They had made all those mini and micro versions too small to add more wires, so they had to make the connector bigger in some way (but ensure you could put an old plug in a new socket). They didn’t bother making new versions with extra wires for mini USB A, mini USB B or micro USB A, because they weren’t used that much – but the shape of the new version of standard USB B and micro USB B was different to the old one.
Now, we come to around 2014. This whole situation kinda sucks, and you can’t make USB “universal” the way device manufacturers want to – it’s inherently really hard to use the same port to charge a device *and* send data out to a connected device, all the solutions kinda suck. At the same time, those concerns we had 20 years ago about “but it’s so hard to have everything listen and know how to start communications” aren’t as major, because of how much more computational power everything has. So, they decide to make *one* connector that can *actually* do it all – it can start the conversation, it can just reply, it can send out power or it can receive it. They couldn’t make it back then because computers weren’t as powerful, but they can now!
See lessEli5: Which hyped products quickly disappeared?
Segways. When they were being hinted at and first introduced it was supposed to massively change how the public gets around & not just for quirky office culture & sightseeing tours.
Segways. When they were being hinted at and first introduced it was supposed to massively change how the public gets around & not just for quirky office culture & sightseeing tours.
See lessWhy do crowds and ghosts “boo” when dissatisfied?
Interesting fact: booing is not a universal thing. In Italy, they don’t boo. They whistle. Went to a soccer game and everyone was whistling at the ref after he carded someone on the home team. I was really confused until a local explained it to me. On that same subject, they don’t whistle at someoneRead more
Interesting fact: booing is not a universal thing. In Italy, they don’t boo. They whistle. Went to a soccer game and everyone was whistling at the ref after he carded someone on the home team. I was really confused until a local explained it to me.
On that same subject, they don’t whistle at someone to get their attention like we do here in the US, they make a “pst” sound, like we use when trying to quietly get someone’s attention, but they do it all the time.
See lessWhy buy a house if you don’t plan to pay it off?
When you sell the house, the money you get is used to pay off the rest of the loan. So if you buy a house for $400,000, pay off $100,000 and sell it again for $400,000, then you get $100,000(minus some closing costs) and you can use that towards another house. More importantly, houses tend to apprecRead more
When you sell the house, the money you get is used to pay off the rest of the loan. So if you buy a house for $400,000, pay off $100,000 and sell it again for $400,000, then you get $100,000(minus some closing costs) and you can use that towards another house. More importantly, houses tend to appreciate in value, so you might actually be selling the house for $500,000, in which case you get $200,000.
Compared to renting, where the money you pay just goes into someone else’s pocket, it’s usually a pretty good deal.
See lessWhy Do Gums Bleed When Flossing? (ELI5)
The gums around your teeth have a job. Their job is to hug the tooth really tight to help keep tooth bugs out. When you don’t brush real good the tooth bugs sit on the tooth right above the gum and just poop acid on them till they get mad and red and puffy. That’s why it’s important to brush and floRead more
The gums around your teeth have a job. Their job is to hug the tooth really tight to help keep tooth bugs out. When you don’t brush real good the tooth bugs sit on the tooth right above the gum and just poop acid on them till they get mad and red and puffy. That’s why it’s important to brush and floss all the bugs off. If they sit there too long without being flossed or brushed off, your spit turns those tooth bugs into stone called tarter and the tarter starts growing on your tooth like barnacles On a dock and imagine trying to hug barnacles! You’d bleed too.
See lessExplain: What is UV Index 0 and its effects?
The UV index is ( effective irradiance from 250-400nm, in watts/m^2 ) x 40. If the UV index is truly, exactly zero, that means it's nighttime and there's no detectable UV coming in. But keep in mind, if they report the UV index as a whole number, that means it could be as high as 0.499 and they'd roRead more
The UV index is ( effective irradiance from 250-400nm, in watts/m^2 ) x 40.
If the UV index is truly, exactly zero, that means it’s nighttime and there’s no detectable UV coming in.
But keep in mind, if they report the UV index as a whole number, that means it could be as high as 0.499 and they’d round that down to zero…so an index of 0 *could* mean as much as 0.012499W/m^2 of radiation coming in. You could burn in that, but you’d have to have terrible genetics, use no sun protection and be exposed for hours.
See lessWhy are some foods spicy to some people but not to others?
You're not broken, but you might be allergic to bell peppers. There was a well-known post a while back about a fellow who thought his whole life that bananas were spicy, turns out he was allergic. I was the same way with ginger, I'd be like, I love the way ginger makes your tongue and mouth tingle aRead more
You’re not broken, but you might be allergic to bell peppers. There was a well-known post a while back about a fellow who thought his whole life that bananas were spicy, turns out he was allergic. I was the same way with ginger, I’d be like, I love the way ginger makes your tongue and mouth tingle and go numb! It is not meant to do that. I am allergic to ginger.
See lessELI5: Why Egypt believes in Allah now, not ancient gods?
There was a big Muslim conquest of North Africa, and it began in Egypt in the year 640. It didn't take long before it was under Islam. Worth noting at that time, Egypt was under Byzantine Christian control anyways, and the ancient Egyptian religion had already fallen to the wayside. So, the people iRead more
There was a big Muslim conquest of North Africa, and it began in Egypt in the year 640. It didn’t take long before it was under Islam. Worth noting at that time, Egypt was under Byzantine Christian control anyways, and the ancient Egyptian religion had already fallen to the wayside. So, the people in that region slowly became Christianized with the rise and spread of Christianity, and then eventually Islamized around 640, and they remain so today.
See lessWhat Is Non-Euclidean Geometry? ELI5
Euclid dealt with flat planes. Everything could be figured out with a straight edge and a piece of string. What if the surface were curved? Seems obvious now, but wasn't then.
Euclid dealt with flat planes. Everything could be figured out with a straight edge and a piece of string.
What if the surface were curved?
Seems obvious now, but wasn’t then.
See lessWhat does buying/selling a house in same market mean? ELI5
If you sell your house when the market is down, you’re getting a bad deal. But if you buy a house when the market is down, you’re getting a good deal. So if you sell your house and buy another house at the same time, it balances out.
If you sell your house when the market is down, you’re getting a bad deal. But if you buy a house when the market is down, you’re getting a good deal. So if you sell your house and buy another house at the same time, it balances out.
See lessWhy do captive and domestic cats often develop kidney disease?
My vet said that kidney disease in cats is basically like cancer in humans. If they live long enough it'll happen. Domesticated cats live long enough, feral cats generally do not.
My vet said that kidney disease in cats is basically like cancer in humans. If they live long enough it’ll happen.
Domesticated cats live long enough, feral cats generally do not.
See lessHow Does Gas in the SPR Stay Usable Despite Shelf Life Limits?
The SPR stores crude oil, not gasoline. Whatever you were reading may have been incorrect about gas vs. oil or simplifying it to the amount of gas the oil translates into, without the details of whatever you read it's impossible to know. But, the SPR stores crude oil which does not have a shelf life
The SPR stores crude oil, not gasoline. Whatever you were reading may have been incorrect about gas vs. oil or simplifying it to the amount of gas the oil translates into, without the details of whatever you read it’s impossible to know. But, the SPR stores crude oil which does not have a shelf life
See less