Recent comments in /f/explainlikeimfive

Slypenslyde t1_iuiiryp wrote

Basically, our eyes and the tools we use don't have the precision to tell the difference.

Think about it. If I draw a line on a piece of paper then draw a dot on that line, the center of the dot can't be EXACTLY any one value past a certain precision. And even if I have high precision, your eye won't be able to tell the difference between "1.33333333333333" and "1.33333333333334" unless you use highly calibrated measuring tools and microscopes.

Likewise, on a computer screen, it's hard to display things between pixels accurately, so there's always a bit of fudge too.

TL;DR: Number lines aren't 100% accurate. They're "close enough", where the definition of that word varies based on what tools are being used.

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JustAZeph t1_iuiir17 wrote

All you need to understand is that in different environments matter behaves differently.

This forms a complex web of rules we call chemistry. I do not know half of the rules, and don’t enjoy studying it, but it’s essentially a study of how these base particles can build up to form these complex geometric patterns and small forces that always want to try and follow these rules.

Pressure, temperature, mass, composition, scale, molecular structure, atomic structure, and loads of other shit all affect these rules. Like, Oxygen at x temperature will want to turn to liquid. Oxygen at x temperature will turn gas. Oxygen at x pressure will want to be liquid. Well, it gets more complicated when they interact with eachother, as temperature and pressure are related. This gets even more complicated once you factor in that you aren’t just dealing with one type of element, and that elements also have rules with how they interact with eachother. Ex:Oxygen at x temperature and hydrogen at x temperature bond together to form water, which also does different things at different temperatures.

This can get insanely complex insanely fast. But the rules all must be followed. Sometimes this sets up a row of dominoes than can get knocked over because all of the rules line up in a way that cause a lot of this matter/bond stored energy to be released.

By exposing heat to this food, you can start a reaction that sustains itself like wood on fire.

Once you get that initial starting flame to burn, and as long as you keep giving enough molecules to burn, the wood at certain temperature pulls oxygen apart to create a different compound which is a little chemical reaction. A lot of times there are many chemical compounds created as it’s not easy to get a completely pure molecular compound. Smoke, ash, infrared heat, all of it is dispersed.

The overall governing rules that explain these things are the Laws of Thermodynamics, like conservation of energy. If you want to understand this better, spend time focusing on videos explaining chemical reactions and the laws of thermodynamics. Those are your googleable terms.

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stolid_agnostic t1_iuiilw2 wrote

Our color preferences change over time, and new ones will always seem bright and fresh to us. There are professionals with advanced degrees and lots of artistic experience who spend their careers developing these and selling them to other companies--clothing manufacturers, artists, whatever. When you look at older palettes, like from your childhood, they always seem dim and dark even though they seemed bright and fresh at the time because there has been a continuous progression of colors since then and you have experienced this passage in time, personally.

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remarkablemayonaise t1_iuiihf4 wrote

Food particles is a fairly unhelpful way to look at calorimetry. If you look at respiration or combustion the products are chemically more stable than the reactants. Carbon dioxide (gas) has stronger chemical bonds than sugar (solid). A house of cards is less stable than a collapsed pile of cards. Heat energy is released in both cases when they change.

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malachi347 t1_iuiifpq wrote

Game demos were the shit. Getting a new system with just a game demo disc was def not tho. At least once I got a system with a demo disc and then a gift card to buy my first game... But everything is closed on Christmas (!!!) so I'd just play the hell out of the demos all day lol. I think it was my first playstation.

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toocoolforthebaroque t1_iuiicat wrote

This is a great explanation!

Just to add to it: gerrymandering can be done for a certain political advantage, as well as boosting any group. Racial gerrymandering, minority-language group gerrymandering, and rural/urban gerrymandering are still too-common examples.

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toocoolforthebaroque t1_iuii9qq wrote

This is a great explanation!

Just to add to it: gerrymandering can be done for a certain political advantage, as well as boosting any group. Racial gerrymandering, minority-language group gerrymandering, and rural/urban gerrymandering are still too-common examples.

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ShankThatSnitch t1_iuii5ai wrote

Basically bacteria, fungus and oxidation are what make food go bad. Without these things, decay doesn't happen. In fact before certain bacteria and fugus existed on earth, vegetation would just pile up in massive amounts. If I am not mistaken, this is why we have oil and coal. Massive piles of vegetation built up, which allowed for those to slowly convert to fossil fuels, since they didn't get eaten by bacteria and fungus.

So basically the canning process involves a few things.

  • Cooking
  • Preservatives
  • Air tight seal.

You cook the food until all contaminants have died, then you seal while it us hot, which removes most of the oxygen. Since the hot air is thinner, when it cools it creates a vaccum seal with minimal oxygen, and prevents anything else from entering. Canned things can have vinegar, salt, citric acid, or other preservatives also, those also prevent any bacteria growth.

You now have a sterile environment that doesn't allow for decay, at least for a very long time. It isn't 100% perfect though.

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stolid_agnostic t1_iuihufl wrote

Because the weather swings back and forth, hot and cold. When you put more energy into it, these swings get bigger but also trend towards hotter. This means that you get hotter summers and occasionally colder/wetter winters, but each summer will be the hottest summer of your life from now until you die. Worse: a lot of our infrastructure relies on weather patterns and ocean currents, and those are greatly influenced by the evaporation of water in hotter locations. With greater heat, you melt more glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets. This additional water will break a lot of these patterns, and will eventually make some parts of the world (like Europe) that are very amenable to human living into places that can no longer support agriculture.

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Leucippus1 t1_iuihn2u wrote

Just remember, the force never just goes away, it doesn't disappear into nothingness. It has to go somewhere. So if I chuck a bunch of mass behind me, like if I am carrying fuel and I burn it and it leaves me by escaping as focused gasses, where does the force of the escaping molecules end up? Intuitively you probably know this, the top of the combustion chamber.

Have you every stood up in a canoe or similar boat and picked up a cooler and handed it to someone on the dock? What happens to the boat? It starts moving away from the dock a little bit. As I hand it to the person on the dock the mass that was in the boat has moved and as a result the force of my moving it is transmitted through my legs and into the bottom of the boat. The boat moves in the opposite direction of where I moved the object of mass.

The why to all of this is a deep discussion about gravity, mass, and the nature of time.

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