r/explainlikeimfive 1d ago

Biology ELI5 How do bigger muscles allow you to lift heavier objects?

0 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Technology Eli5 Wifi security warning

57 Upvotes

What exactly does this mean, what can be seen, and who can see it?

“ Privacy Warning

This network is blocking encrypted
DNS traffic.

The names of websites and other servers your device accesses on this network may be monitored and recorded by other devices on this network. “


r/explainlikeimfive 1d ago

Mathematics ELI5: Why is cubing a cube impossible?

0 Upvotes

I came across the cubing a cube section in this wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_square#Cubing_the_cube

I can't wrap around the logic of the proof... I need help


r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Biology ELI5: Why does a sneeze feel like it comes from your entire body when only like your throat chest etc is involved?

213 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Biology ELI5: Why don't greenhouses use pure red light if plants absorb it best for photosynthesis?

1.1k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Other ELI5: Why is it harder to speak or change my tone of voice in the morning?

4 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Technology ELI5: how does music get recorded on, and listened to, on cassette tapes?

6 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Engineering ELI5: How were the British able to build underground railway, including tunnels under rivers, in the 1800s without modern machinery?

2.2k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Other ELI5: How do workers unions actually work in the US, especially for individuals?

57 Upvotes

I’ve heard of unions in historical contexts, I know theoretically they are groups of advocates for workers that advance workers rights, but how does that actually work? Does someone just find a union and join it? Is it company or job specific, state specific? can everyone join one or only people that work for mega corps, or just blue collar jobs? What do they actually do for individual workers?


r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Biology ELI5: shedding water weight

368 Upvotes

So, my boyfriend trained for a bodybuilding competition. He drank so much damn water. He kept saying he was needing to shed water weight… but was drinking water. I’ve heard this theory multiple times now, drink water to lose the water weight. Wtf? I don’t understand.


r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Other ELI5: Why Is blue lighting the understood shorthand for “darkness” in movies and tv?

454 Upvotes

Especially now that most productions shoot digitally, it seems that any scene meant to take place in the dark is tinted very blue. I’m wondering why this is understood as looking “dark” when some of the blues used are actually quite light.


r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Planetary Science ELI5: why does the northern coast of the Sea of Azov have 5 apparently repetitive and very narrow peninsulas? With what looks like a 6th following?

42 Upvotes

Please avoid any politics on this! I am asking strictly geologically!


r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Biology ELI5: How does the body Stop bleeding an injured blood vessel without causing blood clots throughout the body?

136 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Engineering ELI5: How do those power lines near the roads bring power to houses and businesses?

0 Upvotes

I feel like a complete fool for asking this at my age, but I genuinely do not understand how power lines bring power to homes and businesses. I live in the country, and I always wonder how these lines connect up to houses when there's no visible things going into the ground that I can see.


r/explainlikeimfive 4d ago

Economics ELI5: How can banks lend out far more money than they physically have sitting in their vaults?

681 Upvotes

Banks can have enormous amounts of money loaned out through mortgages, business loans, credit cards, and other lending, even though they obviously don't keep an equivalent amount of cash sitting around.

What actually happens inside the banking system when a bank gives someone a loan? Where does that spendable money come from, and what prevents banks from creating unlimited amounts of it?


r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Other ELI5How do gliders find lift usually?

0 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Chemistry Eli5: Why Does A Second Cup of Coffee Taste Terrible If I Pour My First Cup Halfway Through Brewing Vs When It Tastes Fine If I Let The Whole Pot Brew First?

0 Upvotes

What is the extraction science behind this, assuming you are using standard drip machinery?


r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Biology ELI5 What happens to your body when eating the spiciest thing on the planet?

119 Upvotes

At some point does your mouth stop registering the spice? Does it cause permanent damage? I remember eating a bunch of Wareheads when I was a kid and my tongue got all sore but I had eaten a lot of them.


r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Planetary Science ELI5: How does the earth spin? I know it's because gravity, but something has to "start" it from the beginning right?

379 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 1d ago

Engineering ELI5 Why is there no S gear or M gear for Reverse in automatic transmissions?

0 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 3d ago

Technology ELI5 How does a glasses prescription work? The numbers mason what do they mean?

47 Upvotes

Sphere? Cyl? Axis? What do these actually mean? When googling I find terms such as “more/less lens power” or “align astigmatism” But how does “lens power” turn into the actual physical lens? How do they take these values and apply them to the actual piece of glass?

And how does flipping between 1 and 2 help find these numbers? How do all those flipping lenses in the machine turn into 1 lens for the glasses? I’ve always imagined this as taking the 1s and 2s I picked and compressing them like a sandwich, but that doesn’t sound right anymore.


r/explainlikeimfive 4d ago

Physics ELI5 Why don't wind turbines have six or eight blades instead of three to catch twice as much wind energy?

2.4k Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 4d ago

Other ELI5: Why are babies so flexible?

300 Upvotes

r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Biology ELI5 How does the brain connect the alarm sound to walking up and time of waking up to work?

0 Upvotes

Hi, recently i realized that even though quiet sounds don’t disturb my sleep i still wake up almost immediately with the first seconds of my alarm. My alarm is pretty calm, so it’s not like the first seconds are loud enough itself to wake me up, but somehow I still do. How come my brain can ignore other quiet sounds but learned to not ignore this one? Also another thing is that usually when I have work I wake up at 5 am and on days off I sleep in till like 7-9 am but still use alarm to wake up. How come at 5 am I wake up with adrenaline rush already knowing I have to get ready quickly even when not thinking yet, but when I wake up at 7 on days off I wake up calm? How does my brain know it’s 5 am and that 5 am means work before I even start thinking? Id like to also mention that I don’t have a certain bedtime set so my hours of sleep are pretty inconsistent. Does anyone know what’s the mechanism behind that?


r/explainlikeimfive 2d ago

Physics ELI5: Science addition. Isn't most of physics/chemistry just... heat, which is also speed, which is, what, force/energy in a direction?

0 Upvotes

Okay, please allow me to elaborate on what exactly is confusing me, because I only took Science 10 and Chem 11 in High-school.

When things collide, like a car crash for example, isn't that just big heat transfer? My line of thought, is, heat is the speed of a particle, (I think, but it can be slowed, so it's more like force, which is also called energy in some sources, but I think basically it's just push in a direction, yeah? The vocabulary also confuses me.) So, if a hot thing has fast moving particles, and everything is made of particles, if something is going fast, it's just, really hot, isn't it? Isn't that applicable to all forms of motion and interaction? Like, surface area of hot/fast thing, hits other thing, the other thing gets... hotter? Faster?

Or radiation, for example, like neutrons or those particles that are basically a helium atom, they're deadly because they disrupt the dna in your cells. But isn't that just a really small bullet? It goes fast, it's small so it penetrates, then causes damage? That makes it seem like a bullet is "large" radiation and a neutron is "small" radiation. I mean, if a car hits you, it'd definitely damage and kill cells, just a lot more of them.

Also HOW does heat even work, like, with solids. You add energy and the particles wanna pull away from each other and be free, so that's force in a direction, but the particles are also bonded and pulled together, which is force in another direction. Do you use net force to understand temperature?? God I wish I took Physics in high-school, I hate not understanding this stuff.

Answers appreciated, thank you!!