explainlikeimfive
explainlikeimfive
240 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
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
121 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
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
96 Comments
ELI5 How the first people to measure the circumference of earth do it?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
48 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
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
472 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
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
62 Comments
ELI5: If you bend a metal stick a little bit, it springs back, but if you bend it more, it stays bent. Why?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
79 Comments
ELI5 what is fhe purpose of statue limitation?
I was watching a cold case show ( it happened in Washington, Seattle) where a woman helped her brother after he killed someone—like hiding evidence and lying to
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
23 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?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
177 Comments
ELI5: Why do F1 cars look so different from normal cars, yet MotoGP bikes look very similar to normal bikes?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
36 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
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
51 Comments
ELI5: What is "wet bulb temperature" and why does it matter?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
12 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
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
78 Comments
Eli5 Why does gallium have a high boiling point even though it melts easily in the palm of your hand?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
8 Comments
ELI5: Why do "musical roads" not have Doppler shift?
There is a "musical road" in Fujairah UAE that plays Beethoven when you drive over it. But standing by the side of the road you don't hear the Doppler shift. Wh
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
128 Comments
ELI5. Could black holes consume the entire universe?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
237 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?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
96 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?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
51 Comments
ELI5: Isn't the more powerful lifter still technically using more force and power via their muscles when lifting a weight to the same height more quickly?
The classic introductory physics example for differentiating power from energy is two powerlifters lifting the same barbell to the same height, except one doe
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
238 Comments
ELI5: Who decides who gets each IP Address? How does for example Cloudflare own 1.1.1.1?
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
12 Comments
ELI5: Why/When/How do we take the natural log of data sets?
I am currently looking at water quality data over time for a well. We use a cumulative sum (CUSUM) model to determine when/if a significant shift in the average
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
6 Comments
ELI5: How does music invoke different emotions even without cultural/emotional association?
Initially I thought it could just be cultural/emotional association, and that the emotions invoked are just learned and reinforced by experiences and culture. H
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
733 Comments
ELI5: What does it mean when a large language model (such as ChatGPT) is "hallucinating," and what causes it?
I've heard people say that when these AI programs go off script and give emotional-type answers, they are considered to be hallucinating. I'm not sure what this
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
64 Comments
ELI5 How does surgery to remove cancerous growths or tumours not result in cancer cells seeping into the blood stream causing wider spread of cancer?
For example a risk from melanoma is that it could grow to reach blood vessels, providing a highway to spread to other parts of the body - how then during the pr
Post
Source
explainlikeimfive
40 Comments
ELI5: what are fractals? And why are they important?
Q in the title - thanks for your help
Post
Source
Next Page
Favorites