just-an-astronomer
just-an-astronomer t1_ixzszh7 wrote
Reply to eli5: Why is it when scientists are looking for planets with possible alien species they only look at planets that could sustain human life? by Jcole_Stan
Because it's the only thing we know that can sustain life
It's true that you can possibly make non-carbon-based life, but we have no idea what any signs of that life would be, so we just stick with what we know what our form of life makes (C02, methane, etc)
just-an-astronomer t1_iu395bl wrote
Reply to comment by MrMagik14 in ELI5: Why is Google just so dominant? by Arakis-balls
A transition matrix is a big table that measures how connected pages are with other pages. One of Google's co-founders, Larry Page, wrote his thesis on performing specific math on these matrices that rank how well connected they are with other things that are connected well, this method is called Page rank, not because it ranks webpages, but because Larry Page invented it.
There's not really a way to describe the specifics of how Page rank work without knowing some linear algebra. You're looking for a "solution" to the matrix called its eigenvalues and eigenvectors, which is a Linear Algebra concept I can't quite eli5
just-an-astronomer t1_je0oxv1 wrote
Reply to ELI5 how do 3D glasses (to watch 3D movies) work? by curiousnboredd
Your eyes perceive depth by comparing the difference between the two "pictures" your eye takes. 3-d glasses replicate this by tricking your eyes into each seeing a different image projected onto the same screen
The old red/blue ones used red and blue light to replicate this (red light only went through the red lens, blue through the blue one).
Nowadays the RealD glasses (the clear ones) make use of light polarization, which is the direction the wave of light wobbles as it travels (like a sine wave from trigonometry class). One lens only lets light wobbling horizontally pass through, the other only lets the vertically wobbling light pass through.
Fun tricks with those RealD glasses next time you have a couple pairs: 1. Take a look at your friend wearing one and close one eye, one of their lenses should turn black and 2. Keeping one eye closed and looking at your friend wearing a pair, tilt your head and you should see the lenses change
To fix the edit: it looks distorted without the glasses because both eyes are seeing both images since our eyes can't detect polarization