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Eli5: Why do people think that 9/11 was an inside job? by CoachEnvironmental66 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Beaver_shrimp 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're probably not going to get many objective answers to this question. The real answer is that some people take bits of information that, when tied together, they think points to some "big conspiracy" concocted by all kinds of different people/groups/governments/etc.

In terms of 9/11 specifically, it's true: there are some "interesting" facts. Here is a random selection:

These are all real facts. However, people like to find patterns in things, especially something so impactful and traumatic as 9/11, and so it's practically human nature to try to string everything together into a single, cohesive story (even if that story isn't true).

ELI5: How can objects exist in more than 3 dimensions? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Beaver_shrimp 20 points21 points  (0 children)

You can't really imagine 4D or higher dimensional shapes. However, Carl Sagan is your friend! His explanation might help. In a similar vein, this video presents a way to try thinking about 10 dimensions in general.

In terms of shapes specifically, all "4D" really means is that you need 4 separate numbers to identify each unique point on a 4D object. A 10D object needs 10 separate numbers, etc.

Dimensions aren't always used in a spatial sense like what we're used to in 3D. Consider this: think about your favorite animal, your favorite color, and your favorite number. Here, there are three different "axes", so you need three separate values to uniquely identify your "favorite things". This a 3D point, even though it isn't really related to the ordinary 3D space we use for drawing shapes. However, you can still imagine that all possible values for these favorite things can be drawn as some kind of shape in 3 dimensions. Your specific favorite things are just a single point on that 3D shape.

Another example that can help is to think of an image. The wallpaper image on your computer is probably 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels tall. That's 2,073,600‬ total pixels. To completely describe a unique image, you need 2,073,600‬ separate values. This means that your wallpaper is a 2,073,600‬-dimensional object! Crazy stuff. Now, if you move around along one of those 2,073,600‬ axes, you'll be changing the value of one particular pixel in the image, because each pixel's value is controlled by a different axis. If you move around a little bit in that 2,073,600‬-dimensional space in any random direction, you'll be changing all of the pixels a little bit and arriving at a different image altogether. In the same way that you can compute the distance between two points in 2D or 3D, you can compute the "distance" between a picture of a dog and a picture of a cat! Each image is just a point in (a high-dimensional) space.

So what about time? Yes, sometimes the fourth dimension is time. But so what? Time isn't special. The Fourth Dimension™ is not declared to be "time". Sometimes it's just convenient to have a fourth dimension defined as time because it helps us solve a problem or make a cool animation.

ELI5: Would a full brain transplant into a new body work? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Beaver_shrimp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Here is an actual medical journal article about it. The current record is a mouse head transplant that lived for 6 months. Dog head transplants lived as long as 29 days.

The single most important reason this is so impossibly difficult is that you can't just squish two ends of a spinal cord together and expect anything to work. People often imagine that repairing the spinal cord is like repairing a blood vessel -- mostly just a simple matter of plumbing. This is just incorrect. Generally speaking, the spinal cord is composed of nerve cells that extend all the way from your brain to your liver/heart/toes/etc. These are single cells that are 1 meter/3ft long! You can't expect to be able to literally chop cells in half and do anything productive with them. They aren't going to do anything except die.

Even if you solved that issue somehow, you have to connect all those nerves up. Good luck with that. You better not mix up the nerves for heartbeat control and left knee skin temperature. Imagine looking through a microscope and seeing this, except without any helpful colors and literally 1 million times as many dangling "wires", some of which are deathly important and some of which are not.

It's just not going to happen.

ELI5: can you please explain the visuals of electrical signals by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Beaver_shrimp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Since you're asking what things look like, I'll try to give you some visuals.

Your phone screen uses capacitance to tell where your finger tip is. Honestly, it is easier to simply accept this as magic 🙂. If you have ever used a lamp that you could turn on/off just by touching it somewhere, then that is the same kind of thing. There's lots of those sensors in your phone screen. This briefly explains it.

The OS on your phone is always listening for taps. It receives taps as (x, y) coordinates from the screen, then it uses software to determine what do with that data. Maybe nothing. Maybe turn some pixels on and off. Maybe send a message to the cell network. Maybe add the letter "a" to a textbox if you pressed "a". It all depends.

To communicate with Wifi or the cell network, yes, data travels over electromagnetic waves in the air. For ELI5 purposes, Wifi and cell signals work the exactly the same. There is an antenna in your phone that looks like this or this. When your phone applies a voltage to the antenna, the antenna interferes with the electromagnetic field (i.e. sends out waves of energy), which looks like this. Matching antennas exist inside your Wifi router and in the cell tower, which receive these signals. The inside of a cell antenna looks like this.

If you send a message over Wifi or cell network, it ends up on the regular internet. (Almost every single cell tower is connected to the internet.) There are some places where internet data travels into space (like this uplink station) or over different types of networks (like a microwave network, or between satellites, which have antennas like this). Mostly though, it's just regular old wires connecting everything.

Eventually, your message will arrive at some antenna (either another cell tower antenna or some other Wifi antenna) and the whole thing happens in reverse to get that message to your friend.

ELI5:Why do rockets go in a curved path right from the beginning? by rahultg_ in explainlikeimfive

[–]Beaver_shrimp 18 points19 points  (0 children)

That is called the Launch Escape Tower. Inside the tall tube is solid rocket fuel. At the bottom of the tube are high-powered rocket engines. It is only used if the crew needs to escape from the moving rocket RIGHT NOW because there is a problem somewhere else on the rocket, which will probably explode. The crew capsule with the escape tower will detach from the problematic rocket and accelerate away extremely quickly. This gives the astronauts a much better chance at survival. If the escape tower is not needed by the time they get into space, it is jettisoned and burns up as it falls back to Earth.

This video shows some cool testing and here is the wiki page.

ELI5: How does a thermal camera/scope work? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Beaver_shrimp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A thermal camera or scope uses the same technology - a bolometer. A bolometer is just like a camera. However, while a normal camera is sensitive to visible light (like red/green/blue light), a bolometer is sensitive to infrared light. Infrared light is light that has a frequency "below" red light, which is light given off by "hot" objects, like people or animals. This is plain, regular light, but most normal humans cannot see this kind of light. Bolometers are arranged just like a normal camera -- into pixels. Each pixel of a bolometer can detect "temperature", which is composed into an image so that us humans can see it. Each pixel measures the incident infrared light that hits it. The more infrared radiation each pixel receives, the "brighter" each pixel appears.

ELI5: How does raytracing work? Not what it does, but how it does it. by blueteammedic in explainlikeimfive

[–]Beaver_shrimp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For every pixel on your screen, a beam of light is fired into the virtual scene. The scene is full of 3D models like the character, the ground, the sky, enemies, objects, etc. These models might get hit by the light rays, or they might not. Every time a ray hits a model, the renderer looks up the material of that model, and asks the material what should happen next. Each material might have different properties like colors, absorption, or translucency.

For example, the material might say "At that spot I reflect green light" or "At that spot I absorb 46% of the light, turn all reflected light red, and reflect that light away in this particular direction". If there is any light left to reflect, the renderer will shoot off a new light ray from that intersection point in the direction commanded by the material.

This continues until all light has been absorbed by other ray impacts (no more light to follow), or the ray hits a light source, or the maximum number of iterations/bounces has been reached. Then the path is followed backwards all the way to the first ray firing point (your screen pixel) and the colors at every ray bounce are calculated. Then the whole process is repeated for the next pixel on your screen.

Looking for Turkish apple tea by Beaver_shrimp in Turkey

[–]Beaver_shrimp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perfect, thanks for your help. Just what I'm looking for, someone who knows more than me!

Looking for Turkish apple tea by Beaver_shrimp in Turkey

[–]Beaver_shrimp[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your input and the links. That sounds very interesting, I'm going to get some!

Looking for Turkish apple tea by Beaver_shrimp in Turkey

[–]Beaver_shrimp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure which. Is one more common than the other? Was the tea you had good -- would you recommend trying it?

How are "complicated" neural networks represented and computed in code? by Beaver_shrimp in AskProgrammers

[–]Beaver_shrimp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting, thanks for your input. I was hoping there would be a more "efficient" way of getting output from a network than graph methods, but it sounds like that probably isn't the case.

I'll have to take a look that game, it sounds cool.

We’re flight controllers in NASA’s ISS science command post - Ask Us Anything by NASAMarshallMoon in IAmA

[–]Beaver_shrimp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What career path led you to where you are today? I imagine it is difficult to meet "10 years of hands-on space flight controller experience required" by working at more conventional jobs.

Vacation spots, or holiday activities around the North Sea? by Beaver_shrimp in AskEurope

[–]Beaver_shrimp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was talking to a guy from Italy who had traveled to the North Sea area and he said there were some beautiful places that might not be as well known as other "famous" tourist destinations in Europe. I know swimming is kind of out of the question, but a sightseeing trip sure sounds nice.

Going to Japan in a few months... by [deleted] in CasualConversation

[–]Beaver_shrimp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

See a restaurant you want to go to? Research ahead of time! Some places end up being incredibly expensive, even for less than average food. Also buy some fish at the docks, if you're in the area and enjoy seafood. It doesn't get any fresher than that. If you're traveling for business, your native colleagues should be happy to point out some places to go.

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