Ask Science

Greetings, everyone!

So, this one’s likely pretty niche, but I’m hoping someone here might know the answer.

I understand the basic of quantum computing (qubits, superposition, probability distributions, noise, how observing works, etc), but I’m struggling to understand what operations actually go on within an algorithm. I know you essentially do linear algebra to transform a vector closer and closer to the “true” outcome, but that’s very abstract. What’s actually going on when one does that? How does an operation “know” what the “true” outcome is?

Taxing wealth instead of work is touted as an important part of the solution to the wealth gap, but I’m curious which other solutions have been proposed or attempted and have succeeded or failed.

My dog eats and drinks out of metal bowls. I’ve noticed that when I turn around after filling up the water bowl in the sink, any spit bubbles or backwash on the surface of the water stay oriented the same way (relative to everything else, not me). Why is this? This behavior doesn’t change regardless of how fast or slow, careful or not I am. I’m not sure what kind of metal the bowl is, but it’s about the size and shape of half a basketball. Where I live, the tap water is pretty damn clean. If there are any extraneous factors I haven’t thought to mention, let me know.

Was looking at how rigor mortis is caused and found out it’s from the body leaking calcium into the muscles.

Is there any reason to be optimistic about it, or are we all doomed? As far as I’ve looked it up, the more optimistic projections predict a 1-2° global temperature rise in the next few decades, which is pretty bad.

Not sure if I’m asking in the right community but I’m wondering if there is a point on the human body that if you relax it causes the entire rest of the body to relax?

Say, in the context of finding microbial life on Mars (i.e., organisms that evolved from the start with six nucleotides, not just taking current terrestrial organisms and swapping out the nucleic acids and ribosomes).

Would it be a black hole that you're somehow wrapped in that's causing the space time disturbance? Would it be localized? Or is this something that'd be affecting the entire world?

I did some light research and asked AI, which said it would be extremely dangerous. But come on, it wouldn’t be that dangerous, right? We evolved from animals that lived in the ocean.

I once saw a post on Reddit or similar claiming that the poster lived near a US Naval base and that occaisionally all hobbiest drones flying near the base would just shut down. They claimed that this was due to the powerful radar signals sent out from the base that either interfered with the drones' controls or caused an electrical problem of some kind in the drones. I'm not sure whether they said it was a ship or something on the base itself that sent the signals.

Antivax types are all anti pushing vaccine on to people but if they don't want to get vaccinated then it still won't affect vaccinated folks. From my rough understanding, getting vaccinated keeps you alive or get less severe symptoms, but you can still pass it on.

Hi, I've maintained and used a sourdough starter many years of my life, and I've tried different methods of making the stater. For a while, I would make my bread and then pinch a piece of it off (a "levain") and let that function as my sourdough starter for the next loaf.

Theories are just theories, but some theories have more weight then others - what theory do you find the most credible?

I want to try making a bubble lens cover for a display enclosure. I'm thinking about a simple sandwich of sheet metal flashing with a center window to clamp a sheet of 2mm acrylic. Then place a nichrome wire heating element under the exposed acrylic. The heat will rise and gravity will deform the window to create the bubble.

This might be the dumbest thing I've asked out loud. But I'm really interested in how the measles virus causes immune system amnesia, and if that specific aspect of the measles virus might be able to treat autoimmune disorders.

Sort of a follow up to my topic asking why NDE Research wasn't taken seriously. Which btw I got great replies to.

I guess I've always been confused by the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics and the fact that it's taken seriously. Like is there any proof at all that universes outside of our own exist?

So, obviously there's a mistake in my reasoning somewhere. Maybe I've pointed it out already I'm not sure.

My friend and I were talking about power requirements in loudspeaker design and the fact that almost all of the power is required to drive the woofers and move lots of air.

Like Campi Flegrei: https://www.thelocal.it/20250718/naples-and-campi-flegrei-shaken-by-4-0-magnitude-quake Which has had earthquake swarms, though admittedly its somewhat of a normality in the area

Do we have the technology to play minigolf using subatomic particles?

I think i've discovered something important in the field I dabble in as a advanced hobbyist. Like this was a breakthrough and perspective shift enough for me to stay awake all night into the morning until I had to go to sleep testing it works and boilerplating the abstract paper. I constructed a theoretical framework, practical implementation, and statistically analyzed experimental results across numerous test cases. I then put my findings into as good a technical paper as I could write up. I did as much research as I could to make sure nobody else had written about this before.

Heat is a form of energy right? So if we take away the energy from the Air we have concentrated some heat elswhere which we should be able to harvest? So i ask myself why are Air conditioners not a source of energy?

So forgive me if this topic borders too much on religion, but this is something I've never understood.

This summer and last I started feeling the bite of mosquitoes, like, not the itch, but the moment they "bite". Like a thin shot or a thin plant spike but more than fiberglass. Is there an evolutionary or environmental change to mosquitoes happening, or am I becoming immune to their numbing agent? What's happening?

We know pretty well what matter is and how it interacts with the others.

I understand why we can't see stars during the day: the sun illuminates the atmosphere and effectively blots them out. But why can't we see low earth orbit satellites, which are not exactly "outside" the atmosphere? If they're inside, shouldn't we see them reflecting sunlight back to us?

TNO = trans neptunian object, basically far out dwarf planet

I've been hoodwinked too many times by well-reviewed pop-sci books which I later discovered to be hated by the actual scientists who do the work. Quantum Supremacy by Michio Kaku was the final straw 😆

I just watched a Geology Hub upload on the Cerberean Caldera super eruption in what is now Australia. It happened over 300 million years ago, but in terms of the total age of the planet, even 300 million years is a relatively tiny blip. So have there been any significant epics to truly say events like x, y, or z will never happen again – in any statistically significant way? Will there be another Deccan or Siberian Traps or Columbia River Flood Basalts – one geologic timescale day in the future and countless more in the eons to follow?

So Hi everyone, first of all let me just say sorry if u can't get my writing 😭.

Wherever there is matter in an ever-thinning universe, there might be an entire cosmologically-sized era dominated by an entirely different chemistry to what we have now.

Maybe this should be in Nostupidquestions as I'm aware the moon exists. And I guess there may be an orbit zone where things tend to remain in orbit. But curious...

Are these three statements true:

Theoretically space is infinite, as it is the ultimate container. So how does it expand? For example if you keep adding objects to a room the room isn’t gonna expand, you’re gonna run out of space. So how does space expand if the cause of it is apparently dark matter being created?

I need detailed instructions for converting algae into algenic acid. I would prefer not to use formaldehyde. I am using yellow/green algae so I do expect some adjustments may be needed from brown algae methods.

If we can do plasma deposition for cheap mirror reflective sunglasses with polycarbonate, why aren't these materials commonly used?

If I have a very thin piece of scar tissue on my skin, and then I surgically cut the skin open right along the middle of the scar, and ensure that I do all the best scar healing practises (like holding the skin on either side of the wound together), what will happen? Will the scar get smaller or bigger?

Maybe imagine a can of Rotel mixed in too, which I imagine would be pretty close to water.

I got to thinking last night that theoretically, with enough hair, the air resistance would slow you down so that your terminal velocity would be low enough to land unharmed. How long would it need to be? How would one go about calculating this?

I mean if every variable aligns with any possible edge case that can bleed off velocity including three body interactions with the moon. Is there ever a situation where some substantial (car++) or enormous (skyscraper+++) size rock lands on the surface without explosive energy? Align stars, consult math mediums, play some ZZ Top, piss off Bary the narcissist, or conjure a primordial black hole, just land me a big rock in my yard Science Santa. I want an m-type for Maymass, but any type will do if you can land it.

(Note: I'm not talking about FFI, but healthy people.)

My kid got a little round box of soapy solution at the fairground with a wire loop to blow bubbles with. She was pretty excited with it for few minutes, then lost interest. Kept it on her desk when she got back home.

Hey, so I just watched the Veritasium video "Something Strange Happens When You Trust Quantum Mechanics" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJZ1Ez28C-A), and it got me thinking.

And does this negate the "mirror test" idea? That is, an animal failing to recognise that the creature in the mirror is themselves, but can recognise themselves in water, shows that their problem isn't with the concept of reflectivity or "self", but something about the mirror's version of themselves that they can't quite grasp?

Hi there, I'm not familiar in this space at all which is why I'm asking in this community to understand it better from a science perspective.

It seems a little odd that other crops have been cultivated to literally suit people's tastes and interests, yet many trees...Seemingly not as much?

I have a small hard drive that is making a constant high pitched sound that is typical of the drive, and not very noticeable to the average person, but I have pain induced noise sensitivity. I am curious about how to calculate damping potential. As an initial guestimate, the frequency is very near to my maximum audible range and likely around 12kHz-16kHz. It is a little higher than the switch mode power supplies that I can also hear if it is dead silent in the room, although the drive is a higher amplitude. Addressing the noise with a solution is probably beyond the scope of anything I would actually do, but knowing how to solve it is far more interesting to me. (ELI15 )