https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1eb274a/ask_anything_wednesday_engineering_mathematics/
created by AutoModerator on 24/07/2024 at 14:00 UTC
114 upvotes, 12 top-level comments (showing 12)
Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on **Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science**
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".
Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.
Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here[1]. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.
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If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here[2].
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Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here[3]. Ask away!
Comment by notAHomelessGamer at 25/07/2024 at 04:53 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Why are magnetic catapults just now being researched in launching satellites into space and not decades ago?
Comment by Future-Many7705 at 24/07/2024 at 14:23 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How would geological deposits be different on a planet without life? (first one that got me thinking is coal and oil deposits not existing on alien worlds)
Comment by xmBQWugdxjaA at 25/07/2024 at 08:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
For solar panels connected to the grid, there are significant issues with overproduction making the grid unstable when it's a large proportion of the power, why is this not an issue for the Lunar / Martian rovers, etc.?
Comment by skyblue-cat at 25/07/2024 at 21:38 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What if there's an electric device that effectively deletes electric energy without producing heat or any other observable changes? To avoid issues with conservation laws, you can assume it actually spreads the energy as waves into space but it's too difficult to observe or recapture. Is there any practical use or technological implications of such a device?
Comment by SkillbroSwaggins at 24/07/2024 at 17:06 UTC
1 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Is there a good resource for learning mechanical terms that people recommend? Like different types of hinges, and similar.
Also: how does Heads Up Displays work? And how do they differ from holograms?
Comment by Roman_from_Bhooks at 24/07/2024 at 17:47 UTC
1 upvotes, 4 direct replies
I think the way noise cancelling headphones work is fascinating! Are there any other areas besides sound where waves are canceled? E.g. radiation in space, light, magnetism, electricity..?
Comment by Tripsel2 at 24/07/2024 at 18:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
In a chromaticity diagram, what are the colours like inside the parabola but outside the central triangle that represents display screens? I’m assuming it’s not possible to illustrate with a photo on the web because I’m viewing the web with a display screen.
Comment by Effective-Act5892 at 24/07/2024 at 18:24 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
A rare earth? Is there a possibility that life evolving on earth got the primary kick from the collision that created our moon? With the elements being in a supermassive centrifuge by their very nature, is it not at least feasable that life here got the first boot by that encounter, mixing the necessary elements. A hyper rare earth, if you will.
Comment by tjernobyl at 24/07/2024 at 20:32 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Years ago, I remember reading an article that suggested that a Forward mass detector could be built sensitive enough to detect the gravitational force of a hand near the detector or a car in the driveway. Is this true and practical, and if so, how far from DIYable is it?
Comment by Umikaloo at 24/07/2024 at 18:47 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This question is really hard to articulate, but I'll give it my best shot:
When an object is spinning in the vacuum of space, its particles experience centripidal force as they accelerate. All those particles are stationary relative to eachother however, so if you were to observe just the object on its own with a POV locked to the rotation of the object, you would not be able to see that it is spinning without comparing it to other objects in the universe.
Is there some "universal frame of reference" that determines which objects are spinning, and which are stationary?
Comment by IllustriousTie8174 at 24/07/2024 at 19:25 UTC
0 upvotes, 3 direct replies
If someone isn’t particularly great at math or gifted at math, do you believe there’s a way for them to be able to excel and take advanced math courses? If so how could one do so?
Comment by Ancguy at 24/07/2024 at 18:33 UTC
-1 upvotes, 3 direct replies
If humans had 12 digits instead of ten and we had a "12-based" numbering system, how would that change things like the drug dosages we now have?