Science side

Ask away, no matter how serious or funny they sound. I'll figure out an answer!

[sciencesideanswers]

are y'all still active?

hmm no, not at the moment. But still alive!

[changan-moon]

How to see whether a Chinese handmade teapot is well done or not - quality of the spout is an important standard. 

cr: 承启 建水紫陶

[hello-pls-help-me-deactivated20]

Someone pls explain… @sciencesideanswers

[sciencesideanswers]

This looks like an example of laminar flow.

See this post: https://sciencesideanswers.tumblr.com/post/178882765003/huh-sciencesideanswers-answer-science-side-of

– Alpha

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[sciencesideanswers]

How do I become tumblr savvy?

Hi! We answered a very similar question long ago. It is surprisingly still accurate to date, considering all the changes that Tumblr has gone through.

I’m new to Tumblr, how do I use it?

– Alpha

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[sciencesideanswers]

what the absolute hEck is fire

This is a very common question! Fire is a chemical reaction.

For all those that have been told “fire is plasma”, it is quite related, but not the same thing. Please check these previous answers with further explanations:

What physical state is fire?

But if it has ionization, shouldn’t we say it’s matter?

While being a chemical reaction, is it still matter?

– Alpha

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[sciencesideanswers]

Is everything mostly empty space?

Now this is a hard question to answer. On the surface, yes. Given the ‘standard model’ of an atom, it is obvious; most of an atom is empty space and everything is made up of atoms, so everything is mostly empty space.

But, as you may know, the ‘standard model’ of the atom is a stretch at best from reality. What we have discovered is that electrons do inhabit energy levels, but these energy levels have distinct shapes which are explained as ‘areas in which electrons can be found’. But, based on quantum physics, this is simply not a sufficient explanation.

One of the fundamental pillars of quantum physics is the idea that measuring things inherently changes them. This is what gave birth to the idea of Schrodinger's Cat. And this is very applicable to the ‘empty space’ problem. At high energies, electrons behave like particles. So when we try to measure their extent using high-energy particles, they behave like particles. This is why Rutherford’s famous gold-foil experiment seemed to show that atoms were mostly empty space. However, most of the time, electrons are in a low energy state. This means that, instead of behaving like a particle, they behave like a wave.

This is difficult to conceptualize, so here’s a way of looking at it: think of the electron like a cloud. It exists throughout the whole volume of its energy level, but isn’t exactly anywhere. It is only when you force the electron to a high-energy state that it behaves like a particle and exists at a point.

So, the real answer to the question is no, you aren’t mostly empty space. You (and everything else in the world) are made up mostly of wave-acting electron clouds which interact with each other and the world around them.

This Forbes article is what inspired this post.

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

who is the oldest lobster? does it have a name??

George!

While it’s not been officially confirmed, the oldest lobster ever reported is George, the 140-year-old lobster caught in 2008. He was released, and could be alive today at 150+ years! Here he is in all his glory.

However, it is conventional knowledge that a lobster grows one pound every 7 to 10 years. Using this math, a lobster caught in Maine in 1926  (weighing 51.5 lbs) could have been over 500 years old! It’s not likely, as we have no way of even confirming the size of said lobster, but it is technically possible.

Sources: oldest.org, largest.org, oddee.com

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

Hi ! This may sound really weird and feel free not to answer. So I'm in high school and want to become a doctor and in my country, they have a diff. Way of teaching physics- they make you learn REALLY lengthy derivations and stuff, which my brain isn't able to retain. I'm struggling SO much , and I've lost hope- I just feel so helpless and I don't know what to do. I'm not struggling with chem or biology , but physics just makes me feel hopeless. I'm sorry

Hey! Thanks for the question. I’ll start this off by saying there’s no one way to learn that works for everyone, so I can’t promise anything. But I can talk about it some and give you some options! I love physics, so I thought I’d tackle this question. I never had to learn derivations though, so don’t take my word for it.

The most helpful thing you can do is to understand the derivations you’re doing. If you just memorize them, you haven’t really gotten anywhere. The importance of derivations is to show that most of classical physics can be boiled down to a few laws and some little tricks. 

My first suggestion is to practice. As with everything, practice makes perfect. However, when doing derivations, there is a specific way you should practice. I would suggest writing down relevant laws (Newton’s Third, Ohm’s Law, Kirchoff’s Law, etc.) on one side of the paper and the end goal equation on the other, and then close everything and try to derive it on your own. See where you get just thinking logically. Then, when you get stuck, check what you missed and write that step a few times just to jog your memory for next time. Then sit on it for a while before trying it the same way.

Physics can be really difficult for a lot of people, so don’t feel like you’re alone. And most importantly, know that you can do it!

For more physics-based resources, check out: Khan Academy, physics.info, and HyperPhysics, among hundreds of others. And, as always, feel free to ask us here too!

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

Can you explain the relationship between ocean acidification and global climate change? Thanks!

Ocean Acidification is related to climate change in that they can both be caused by CO2 emissions. These are primarily caused by burning fossil fuels. Some sources list ocean acidification as a result of climate change, but it is more another outcome of human action that is detrimental to the environment, similar to climate change.

For anyone who doesn’t know (and don’t feel bad, I didn’t either), ocean acidification is the process by which the ocean becomes more acidic as it absorbs excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Since the beginning of the industrial era, the ocean has become 30% more acidic. This acidification hurts marine wildlife, especially those that make shells or skeletons (like snails and corals, for example).

For more information on ocean acidification: UC Davis’s climate change page, NDRC, and this Union of Concerned Scientists article

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

why are mini m&m's better than regular m&m's???

There is actually a simple scientific explanation for this: the candy to chocolate ratio!

As I’m sure you know, M&Ms are candy-coated chocolate. What you may not know is that, for all sizes and types of M&M, the candy coating is approximately the same thickness. Because of that, there is more candy in the same volume of mini M&Ms than regular M&Ms. So, when you take a handful of minis, you actually taste more candy than a handful of regular M&Ms. Which is why they taste better!

Now, this is contentious, because some people like the chocolate better than the candy, so to them mini M&Ms are less good than the regulars. But, taste aside, everyone can agree that mini M&Ms taste different than regular M&Ms and the candy-chocolate ratio is the reason why.

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

Will the earth suffer harsher winters from the effects of global warming?

Global Warming, more commonly known as climate change, is hard to define, but commonly refers to the rapid warming trend that has been occurring across the globe for the last few decades. Although there are people who ‘don’t believe in it’ or deny its existence, climate change is real and it is at least partially caused by humans.

Because the trend is dramatic warming of the Earth, it seems counterintuitive that harsher winters can be caused by climate change. And to an extent, that’s true. In the long term, winters will be warmer. However, climate change affects weather systems in very complicated ways, some of which can lead to seemingly more severe and even colder winters.

The main way this happens is through the destabilization of the jet stream. The jet stream is an upper-atmosphere stream of air that runs east to west and separates the warm equatorial air from the cold polar air. Now, one aspect of climate change is that it is disproportionately warming the polar air. This decreased difference in temperature weakens the jet stream, causing it to dip much lower than usual sometimes. This is what causes the cold snaps we have experienced over and over in the US Northeast over the past decade.

Another effect of climate change is increased evaporation. During the warm months, this causes the record flooding we’ve witnessed as of late. However, during the winter, this can cause increased snowfall, leading to what feels like a harsher winter.

In a few words, yes, harsher winters can be caused by climate change. However, they won’t last forever, as eventually they will be outpaced by the warming trend.

But most importantly, having cold temperatures is not an argument against climate change. The weather will become destabilized and weird things will happen. The important thing is to trust the experts and the data, of which the vast majority (appx. 90%) point to human-caused climate change that is causing temperatures to rise at unprecedented rates.

For a little more reading (there is a wealth of information out there) check out: NASA ClimateKids, Forbes, ThinkProgress, and anything under the EDF webpage

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

I know that this may come across as insensitive, but I’ve always wondered what evolutionary advantages would a longer lifespan entail for females even though their number of eggs (and therefore menopause age) stays the same?

The short answer here is that we don’t really know for sure. What we do know is that it’s a very real phenomenon and occurs across species, as a new study shows. According to the study, across the 101 mammalian species studied, females lived an average of 18.6% longer. Of course, this varied across species (the difference in humans is most often quoted at 8%), but the evidence is there nonetheless. While exact causes are not known, scientists claim that the difference in lifespan is almost certainly biological, not social.

The most commonly hypothesized reasons are sex chromosomes and sex hormones. The first of these is interesting, as females have two X chromosomes, meaning that essentially if one is damaged, there is a backup. This backup chromosome could aid in the longevity seen in females. More compelling is the second argument, that the sex hormones cause the difference. Testosterone has been shown (albeit not totally conclusively) to be damaging to the body, both through reckless and aggressive behavior and causing increased negative biological effects such as storing fat around vital organs. In addition, estrogen tends to have the opposite effect. It is a known antioxidant and helps to repair damaged cells. 

Evolutionarily, this can be tentatively explained as follows: testosterone allows males to be strong when necessary but their longevity is unimportant to the rearing of a child. A female needs to be healthy longer in order to continue to bear children and then to raise those children as necessary. While it is not perfect (or proven), this hypothesis does help explain the patterns we see in most species.

For more reading on what’s covered above, check out: Our World In Data, WHO, TIME Magazine, and the BBC

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

Why can we just make a hole in an equation by multiplying it by (x-n)/(x-n) with n being a number. It’s the same equation, and the hole can be canceled out, so why do we graph a hole there anyway? Couldn’t you just get rid of the whole graph by just replacing n by every x value that exists? Tldr: holes in equations???

(x-n)/(x-n) makes a hole at x=n because, for x=n, there is a zero in the denominator, and as everyone knows, you can’t divide by zero. To explain this fully, let’s graph the function y=(x-2)/(x-2). As you can see from the graph, (x-2)/(x-2) is equal to 1 everywhere except for x=2 where it is undefined (you can use the table function or check the value at x=2 by hovering over the point in Desmos to verify this). 

So, when you multiply anything by 1, you get the same thing, and when you multiply something by ‘undefined,’ you get ‘undefined,’ which is represented on a graph as a hole because no value is returned by the function. This means that when you multiply a function by (x-n)/(x-n), you get the exact same function everywhere except x=n, where you get undefined, which again causes a hole in the graph. 

As to why you can’t ‘cancel’ the (x/n)s, the answer is complicated. The short answer is that it’s a function. Because there is not a single answer, every operation must be done in a way that does not hide or eliminate information, specifically zeroes in the denominator. Here’s why: canceling something in the numerator and denominator only works because it is the same as saying the two expressions are equal, ie 2/2*5=5. However, the same cannot be said for functions which cause zeroes in the denominator because (x-2)/(x-2) *is not equal to 5 when x=2 (because it’s undefined). I know this feels like circular logic, but it’s the best way to explain it.

– Admin Noah

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[sciencesideanswers]

I was bouncing around tumblr late last night and came across the term "a mole of bees" besides the fact i doubt there is a mole of any living thing on earth, how much space would this take up?

Well,  it actually depends. The definition of mole is:

The mole, symbol mol, is the SI unit of amount of substance. One mole contains exactly 6.02214076 × 1023 elementary entities. This number is the fixed numerical value of the Avogadro constant, NA, when expressed in the unit mol−1 and is called the Avogadro number.

The amount of substance, symbol n, of a system is a measure of the number of specified elementary entities. An elementary entity may be an atom, a molecule, an ion, an electron, any other particle or specified group of particles.

See: Definition of mole (The International System of Units, page 134).

The problematic part is that last one: “any other particle or specified group of particles”.

So… what’s the elementary unit for bees?

Option 1: Elementary particles for bees is a single bee

I think this is the option you had in mind.

If that’s the case, then a mole of bees is 6.02214076 × 1023 bees.

For their size, they vary a lot, so let’s take the minimum and maximum sizes: 2 mm / 39 mm. Let’s assume they are cylindrical to a ratio of 0.25/1, meaning that we would have a minimal bee of 2 mm long and 0.5 mm in girth as a minimum bee, and a maximum bee of 39 mm long with 9.75 mm in girth.

Since we know how to calculate the volume for cylinders (V = r2 × π × h), we can now run some calculations.

Volume of our minimal bee: πr2 h = π · (0.25 mm)2 · 2 mm ≈ 0.3927 mm3

Volume of our maximum bee: π r2 h = π · (4.875 mm)2 · 39 mm ≈ 2,911.8146 mm3

Volume of mole of minimal bees: 0.3927 mm3 · 6.02214076 × 1023 ≈ 2.36 × 1023 mm3 ≈ 236,000 km3

Volume of mole of maximum bees: 2,911.8146 mm3 · 6.02214076 × 1023 ≈ 1.75 × 1027 mm3 ≈ 1,790,000,000 km3

This means that we could fill 55 Grand Canyons with a mole of our minimal bees, or 450,000 Grand Canyons with maximal bees!

Option 2: Elementary particles for bees are organic molecules

This one is a lot more boring. I don’t have good numbers because I could not find any analysis on the chemical composition of the bee body. But because the Avogadro’s constant is meant to equal the number of molecules with their atomic weight, we can make these deductions:

If a bee was made of a single “particle” of Hydrogen (atomic weight ≈ 1), then a mole of bees would be about 1 gram.

If a bee “particle” was made of two atoms of Hydrogen (atomic weight ≈ 1 + 1), then 2 grams.

If two Hydrogens and one Carbon atom (atomic weight ≈ 1 + 1 + 12), then 14 grams.

Let’s say that the “average” bee particle is then 3 H, 2 C, 0.5 N, 1.8 O. (These are totally made up numbers!) In a case like this, the average atomic weight of a bee “particle” would be 50.4, making a mole of bees 50.4 grams.

At that point, you can imagine that a mole of bees would probably be about a fistful of bees.

– Alpha

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[sciencesideanswers]

Does the size of a planet impact its speed of rotation? Do small planets rotate faster because the mass is closer to the central axis? Have found conflicting/confusing answers online...

So the short answer to your first question is yes, but in the exact opposite way you think. In fact, unless there are special circumstances you will find that it is the larger of the planets that indeed rotate faster than the smaller ones.

Here is a chart of rotation speeds of our own solar system.

The initial thinking of smaller objects being able to rotate quicker because the mass is closer to the central axis is called angular momentum, for example just like a figure skater pulling their arms and legs in close to be able to spin faster. So why isn’t it like this when it comes to the planets?

The simple answer is this. Larger planets were made from larger clouds of stuff, so once the planets started to contract and form, they had more mass and therefore more momentum during their formation which equates to a faster rotation.

This is, of course, a general idea, as space is chaotic. Collisions happen and can either make a planet rotate faster, slower, or even backwards (retrograde), but as a general rule, most planet formations and rotations will follow the same patterns.

(Source.)

-Admin Mike

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[sciencesideanswers]

Okay so whenever my dad and I go to Pizza Hut I get a glass of water and he gets a glass of Pepsi... The ice in my water always melts way faster than the ice in his, so what's up with that?

The short answer is salt and carbon dioxide (CO2). Soda contains sodium (salt) and if you have ever made ice cream, you know that salt lowers the freezing temperature (therefore also the melting temperature) of water or ice. Having sodium in any solution will initially make it a colder solution because of this. More information here. Carbon Dioxide can have a similar effect on ice and water. In fact, dry ice is just solidified carbon dioxide, which can also lower the melting point of the solution (soda).

-Admin Mike

Check out his personal blog here. |  Support us on Patreon

[sciencesideanswers]

Is complete vacuum possible?also did cern actually create antimatter?

We can get relatively close to a complete vacuum however it is completely impossible to have a perfect or complete vacuum. A complete vacuum is defined as an area with absolutely zero particles inside said region of space. So why is this the case? There are two main reasons why we can never reach this.

The first reason is that whatever container you are attempting to make a perfect vacuum must be kept at a constant temperature of zero degrees Kelvin (0°K), also known as absolute zero. If it is not kept at this temperature it will radiate photons from the container, which can, in turn, create electron and positron pairs that can appear inside of the container. Is it possible to reach absolute zero though? The answer is, unfortunately, no, however, we can get really close, about a billionth of a degree Kelvin. Want to know why? Click here to learn more about why we can’t reach absolute zero.

The other main reason why we will never be able to create an absolute perfect vacuum is because of weakly interacting particles, such as the neutrino. No matter how thick the container is there will always be a finite possibility that a neutrino or other particle will and could enter the region. To learn more about neutrinos and other weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP’s) click here.

To the second question, CERN did, in fact, create antimatter all the way back in 1996. They created antimatter that lasted for about 40 billionths of a second before it was annihilated by ordinary matter. To read more about CERN and antimatter click here.

-Admin Mike

Check out his personal blog here. |  Support us on Patreon

[sciencesideanswers]

can you explain why there are some posts which are like a week old and out of nowhere they get a note and it shows as 1 favourite and when you open that its just empty?

Hi! I have two main hypotheses about this.

First hypothesis: Themes.

It is entirely possible that some themes just hide the notes that a particular post has. So, if you’re seeing a post page, you might be looking at the blog theme, and the theme might just not be showing the posts. This does not apply if you’re looking at the Tumblr Dashboard or the Tumblr mobile version of a post -- those don’t have custom themes.

Sometimes the theme design just didn’t consider notes, or sometimes they only considered a certain amount of them. Or it might just be coded weirdly. Furthermore, the Tumblr theme coding allows you to show any arbitrary subset of notes. I am not exactly sure why you would choose to only show some notes, but that’s something that you can absolutely do.

Here are Tumblr Docs on the code that themes use. Right now the notes are put on the page all or none (or loaded by AJAX, meaning that they will be loaded after the page has loaded). Still, custom JavaScript (code) or CSS (styles) on the page is something that you control and that gives you, as a coder, power to hide any of them.

Second hypothesis: Eventual consistency.

I wrote a bit about it in an old answer about the no-notes post, but here goes another try.

Tumblr is a really big platform. As such, it is impossible for Tumblr to keep everything running from a single server. This means that they need to provide the content from different servers at the same time. This also means that some of that information (such as the notes for a post) must be present in multiple places at the same time… and that means, in turn, that when a new note comes in, it will be sent to one of those first. If you look at the post, and the second server is the one showing you the info, then you won’t see the notes.

(Disclaimer 1: It is a lot more complicated than this, I’m simplifying how it works.)

(Disclaimer 2: I’m making several assumptions -- only Tumblr employees know exactly what’s going on.)

Similar to Youtube and the views not being updated in real-time, the servers, later on, will catch up and all of them will show the right notes. That’s why the mechanism is called eventual consistency: it might be consistent at times, but it eventually settles down the differences.

The strategy, put simply, is a trade-off to be able to handle really big systems with a lot of data.

– Alpha

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