Why?

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gimmepie

gimmepie

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    Why?



    Ever had that stereotypical, cyclical conversation with a small child where they ask you a simple question and then proceed to ask you "why?" every time you subsequently answer bringing you into increasing complex areas of discussion and pushing both your knowledge and patience? Well you're about to... sort of.

    The way this event works is simple, I'm going to ask a "why" question. The next person then has to answer that question as factually as they can and subsequently ask a "why" question of their own. Essentially we keep going in an endless cycle of questions and answers until we run out of questions or get bored. A good way to learn things right? Try to make things quick questions though, we don't want to take away from potential threads after all!

    Now onto the first question...​

    Why are certain sound frequencies outside the range of human hearing?

     
    Biologically it's just simply how our ears work. Take a dog whistle for instance. We can't really hear anything because the sound the whistle outputs is so high pitched we can't detect it. However the sound is on the high end of their spectrum of hearing, and thus they can hear it (and seem to dislike it.)

    It may be this way because our ears are bigger than that of a dog or cat's, but there's likely other factors involved like the shape of the animal's ear, the environment the animal lives in, the sounds the animal makes (elephants have a similar range of hearing to a humans, but the low and high ends of their hearing spectrum are slightly lower than ours), their place on the food chain, and other criteria. In layman's terms; animals are just built differently than we are, and what they hear is different from what we hear because of that.

    Now, for our next question: Why is the sky blue?
     
    Everyone knows that white light passes through prism splits in seven colours.
    All light travels in a straight line unless something gets in the way and does one of these things reflect it, bend it or scatter it. Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.

    Next question: Why this world exist?
     
    It exists due to a series of coincidences that lead to the accumulation of enough dust and other materials in the solar nebula that formed into our solar system. Our world as we know it is also mostly random. The dinosaurs were wiped out by a random, isolated event, leading to mammals evolving, some of them into us, and we contructed this world to ease our own existences.

    Why do male seahorses carry offspring?
     
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    I did a bit of research but all I could find was information about how they carry and birth the offspring. If I had to hazard a guess though, it is likely an evolution stemming from the male of the species being more involved in the care of young.

    Has there even been a successful (non-corrupted, non-dictatorship) communist government?
     
    There are and have been a lot of communist parties, but they've only ever been in power in eastern Europe; central-, east-, and southeast-Asia; parts of Africa; and Cuba. Most of them don't have communist leaders anymore. I've not been able to look into each country's history, but from the ones I have it does look like each suffered from some level of corruption or authoritarianism. It seems that most took their inspiration from the Soviet Union and that most of these governments were formed out of violence and civil war and that their rise to power came with crackdowns on opposition. So, not all that different from many non-Communist countries with similar histories, but since communist groups always existed in opposition to capitalist countries and most had their heydays during the Cold War, they were always in a propaganda war and were hard on opponents.

    Why don't humans have more hair over their bodies like other mammals?
     
    Nobody is totally certain, but there are a few theories according to this article I just read.

    One of the less likely, is that the hominid line went through a semi-aquatic evolutionary phase and lost most of our hair to make us more streamlines in the water like Dolphins or Walruses.

    More likely theories suggest we developed less hair when hominids moved from shaded forests into the heat of the savannah. Losing the hair allowed our ancestors to be cooler during the day whilst absorbing more heat energy as it got later and colder.

    The other more likely theory, is that we lost our hair as a method of freeing ourselves from all the parasitic organisms that plague primates. Eventually this hairlessness would then become an aspect of sexual selection since having less parasites reduced chances of illness.

    Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/19/science/why-humans-and-their-fur-parted-ways.html?pagewanted=all

    Question: What progress has been made towards unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics in recent years, if any?
     
    What seperates quantum mechanics and general relativity the most is gravity. Particles at the smallest scale (known as the Planck scale) do not behave according to the laws of general relativity, and the particles that are massive do not behave according to the laws of quantum mechanics.

    The closest, I believe we've come to unifying these two is through string theory, which itself is a theory of quantum gravity. (Quantum gravity aims to explain the presence of gravity on a Planck (quantum) scale, thus providing a link between general relativity and quantum mechanics.)

    String theory, specifically, suggests that space is made of extremely tiny (beyond the Planck scale) one dimensional strings that move through space and interact with each other (as you zoom out, they behave and appear to be normal three dimensional particles) and this allows for the existence of different types of qauntum particles (depending on the vibrational state of the "strings"). One of the particles that would exist if this theory is true is the graviton, a particle that effectively "carries" the force of gravity, like an electron/proton/photon can carry electromagnetism.

    Another popular theory that aims to unify these two is the concept that space, even empty space, is made up of small "cells" that act as building blocks. Under special assumptions, following this theory mathematically, the Friedmann equations can be derived directly from it (the Friedmann equation deals with the expansion and structure of the universe in space).

    All in all, quantum gravity seems to be the next big step towards the Theory of Everything, unifying the two governing concepts of our universe to form one perfect theory that will explain it all.

    And o    n another note, neither of these can accurately describe the mechanics of space and particles during the Big Bang, or the mechanics of the black hole, so perhaps we're still missing something, and that something might be what we need to link these two.

    Phew, that was fun. xD

    Do twins have the same fingerprint? If not, why not?
     
    No two people, even genetic twins, have identical fingerprints. This is because fingertips are not purely genetic but also part of a phenotype. This means that random environmental factors in the womb also have an effect on the appearance of fingertips. However the fingerprints of identical twins are usually very similar.

    Question: There's a lot of deities in the Hindu religion. Are they all worshipped and is there a hierarchy?
     
    In my country, there is. I heard there are singers, preachers, etc. And ofcouse, they are all worshipped. Some do not suprisingly (Bullies!!~) I think they are not worshiped for some because the singers distract them or annoy them for some reason.

    Are technology life-waster?
     
    From what I've read Hindu isn't really single religion but a collective of different faiths and beliefs from India, each Hindu has a personal god, which is a different form of the main (and only god) Brahman.

    Question: Why can our immune system destroy our own eyes?
     
    Easy, nutrition. If you did not know, Vitamin A improves eyesight (some Vitamin C too) Here are some that are Vitamin A:
    Spoiler:


    Question: Why are cyberbullying appreciated by some?
     
    I kinda say yes but kinda say no. NASA predicted they can tell the truth about Aliens in 20 years. If it is not true, then gg they don't know. But there is another answer, quantum computing. NASA is working on it so yeah.

    Question: Why is life hard/easy?
     
    That answer is basically impossible to give a definitive answer to since everyone has different experiences to each other and different perspectives of even similar experiences. Please try to choose things that will have definitive answers in the future.

    Question: Have their been similar events to the Snowden incident in the history of the US? If yes, how widely were they publicised and/or what was the general public reaction to them?
     
    guys do easier questions =(

    All I can find is something about two men, Thomas Drake (circa 2011) and William Binney (circa 2001), who were former NSA agents now labeled "whisteblowers" who seemed to express dissatisfaction with some of the NSA's practices and may or may not have leaked some information. I don't really know how well publicized it was or what people thought of it. Can't say I remember anything about it, though I don't exactly keep up with what's happening in my country and in Binney's case I was like 8 so......

    Next Question: Why do tides occur?
     
    Whenever the Moon, Earth and Sun are aligned, the gravitational pull of the sun adds to that of the moon causing maximum tides. Spring tides happen when the sun and moon are on the same side of the earth (New Moon) or when the sun and moon are on opposite sides of the earth (Full Moon).

    Next Question: What causes sneezing?
     
    At least there are reasons that have been given by science. No consensus is hardly the worst thing in the world. Science is an endless pursuit of explanation, and we'll get a consensus eventually.

    Why do some dogs eat their own crap?
     
    Dogs tend to eat their own feces as an evolution trait of replenishing nutrients in their diets.

    Why is minecraft so popular?
     
    Because of the creativity the game itself affords, and it's ease of use. Minecraft tends to lend itself to easy expressions such as: volume, expressed as total blocks needed; length and width, expressed as X/Z Coordinates; and Height, expressed as the Y Coordinate. It's square units, AKA Blocks, make these easy to calculate. Additional features added later in the games development such as Horses, Boats, Redstone, and additional blocks that have other functions allow people to build many things.

    In the same token the game also provides a loose set of goals, and provides players with the freedom to achieve those goals, in however way they choose. You can take several paths to those ends. You even have plenty of options to do things in a technical manner; where you may devise some manner of redstone devices to automate your survival needs so you can focus on other tasks. You can also tackle the game in a Cooperative manner with friends on a server multiplayer environment, where each can ply their skills to their best and create even bigger and better things.

    TL;DR: The Sky Is The Limit with Minecraft. You can do almost anything with it. If you don't believe me, go watch some SethBling or any other popular Minecraft youtuber on Youtube. Etho is a good example of technical, as is DireDwarf, and too many others to name!

    Now for my question:

    Why does society cling to outdated traditions and ideals?
     
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