explainlikeimfive
explainlikeimfive
358 Comments
ELI5 why do flies constantly land on you, when they are constantly swatted away?
My assumptions are that 1) they sense our bodies, meaning interesting biological smells (potential food) and they are aggravatingly, ceaselessly resource driven
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explainlikeimfive
63 Comments
ELI5 How is it that download speeds have gone from several kb/s to hundreds of mb/s but ping has stayed exactly the same?
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explainlikeimfive
112 Comments
ELI5: Why can't most life on earth ingest, digest, and extract energy from things that aren't fats, carbs, or proteins? Why aren't there organisms that eat stuff like copper, diamond, rock, clay, etc.?
I did not get an exact answer when I looked this up myself. The best answer that was given was "because we're carbon-based lifeforms", which doesn't really help
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explainlikeimfive
157 Comments
ELI5:Why don't car tires use innter tubes?
I'm sure there's a simple and reasonable explanation but it seems weird to me! Edit: Argh typo in the title, I'm a big dumb
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explainlikeimfive
63 Comments
ELI5: Why are decimeters so uncommonly used?
I’m an American so I generally use imperial units, but whenever I see SI units being used, you’ll see many measurements in meters, centimeters, and milimeters,
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explainlikeimfive
85 Comments
ELI5: How much internet traffic *actually* passes through submarine cables?
I've been reading a lot about submarine cables (inspired by the novel Twist) and some say 99% of internet traffic is passed through 'em but, for example, if I'm
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explainlikeimfive
122 Comments
ELI5 How the first people to measure the circumference of earth do it?
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explainlikeimfive
15 Comments
ELI5: how do vinegar eels get into vinegar?
Never heard of them before a whatisit post which lead me down a rabbit hole. I get they are mostly harmless and people in the US probably have never seen/heard
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explainlikeimfive
7 Comments
ELI5 How do we feel the "wet" sensation?
It's summer, I've been in water quite a bit lately so Im curious, what is the process that the skin go through to tell whether its in contact with something wet
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explainlikeimfive
34 Comments
ELI5: If grip depends only on the perpendicular force and the coefficient of friction and not on the contact patch area, why are sport cars using slick and wide tyres? Doesn't larger contact area reduce the load on the tyre, reducing grip?
I've always heard that slick tyres are for more contact patch area, but why is that something desidered?
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explainlikeimfive
477 Comments
ELI5: Why do so many websites care that you're using a VPN?
Plenty of websites won't let browse them, if you're on a VPN. Why do they care? Many of them give generic login errors, if they're a site where you have an acco
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explainlikeimfive
64 Comments
ELI5: If you bend a metal stick a little bit, it springs back, but if you bend it more, it stays bent. Why?
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explainlikeimfive
19 Comments
ELI5 How does it benefit Google or OpenAI if people choose to use their respective LLM models?
I understand the pay to use model but so many companies are creating their own models and allowing limited free usage now. Is it just bragging rights and other
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explainlikeimfive
183 Comments
ELI5: Why do F1 cars look so different from normal cars, yet MotoGP bikes look very similar to normal bikes?
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explainlikeimfive
69 Comments
ELI5: What is "wet bulb temperature" and why does it matter?
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explainlikeimfive
4 Comments
ELI5 In radio transmissions how are data/telemetry transmissions converted into sound?
Note I’m not talking about literal voice transmissions as those are apparently by a speaker capturing the sound and basically transmitting the instructions of h
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explainlikeimfive
13 Comments
ELI5. How can the speed that the universe is expanding be measured?
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explainlikeimfive
11 Comments
ELI5 How does the temperature of a bullet affect the wound it causes?
Supposedly a flying bullet is very hot (supposedly it can be 100–300°C or 212–572°F on arrival) How does it affect the wound? Does it burn the skin it first
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explainlikeimfive
14 Comments
ELI5 Logic gates and drawing circuits
I need to draw a circuit for XOR using only AND and OR gates (no NOT gate). Can someone help me understand the logic or a circuit diagram?
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explainlikeimfive
81 Comments
Eli5 Why does gallium have a high boiling point even though it melts easily in the palm of your hand?
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explainlikeimfive
36 Comments
ELI5: Please explain the science behind flooding
I have been watching the news and it’s heartbreaking. But, I just don’t understand why/how 6-12 inches of rain can cause a river to rise 20 feet. Can someone ex
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explainlikeimfive
242 Comments
ELI5 Why does everyone use AWS, and what actually happens when it goes down?
Every time there's an AWS outage, half the internet seems to go offline. Why is there such a heavy dependence on it, and can anything be done to reduce that?
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explainlikeimfive
15 Comments
ELI5: Why does Mac require you to eject a USB drive before removing it, but Windows doesn’t?
Thank ykh
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explainlikeimfive
98 Comments
ELI5 The old UK pre decimalisation currency system?
How did it work, how could you workout what change to give if somebody bought something from you?
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