r/explainlikeimfive

I'm an American that isn't the biggest fan of soccer but I enjoy the World Cup matches similar to the Olympics, I think it's just fun to watch. As I understand it, this American team has potential to be better than years past. So I'm a very casual viewer.

I know Balogun's card wasn't even the first to be appealed as they also suspended Ronaldo's to allow him to play in the first game of the Cup, and he's 42 and hasn't played well, so there's precedence.

So my son asked me really interesting question and I want to explain to him in a way so that he understands properly.
He asked if moon was formed after something knocked it out of earth. How both became spherical with no visible dent of any kind on earth or moon.

EDIT : Tanks everyone for the responses. I think showing him a gelatinous blob regaining shape after a scooping a spoonful will help.

I see people talk about living off their investments. I’m wondering how people actually do it. Do they just live off dividends, sell portions of their stocks, a combo of both?

I find it kind of hard to believe that there are people actively trying to guess/brute force logins for generic services. And also that even if their is, that having special characters/numbers whatever actually tangibley increases security.

Yeah it makes sense to take precaution for some instances where there is actual financial risk to an account, or in cases where someone who knows you tries to be intrusive. But in general, surely any non target specific account breach is just from a large data leak or access through alternate methods.

Does it actually make a tangible difference?

Hi. If you take two identical pieces of broken material, for example glass and rock, the glass one is a lot sharper and will damage you a lot more than the rock one. Why is that?

Every time I look in to it, I’m left just as confused as I started. Please help a mathless nerd

I get the basic premise. If there is a slow guy, you want a clear easy way to pass him. But if there's a lot of traffic, wouldn't make more sense to actually use all lanes to fit the cars?

When I try to look it up online, it says it uses the lane more efficiently. But how so? Like I guess the right lane would be much more efficient in terms of number of cars it will fit, but then the left lanes would barely be utilized to offset it.

I've tried Alani and Celsius, both have 200mg of caffeine, and they barely do a thing. However, a 8oz cup of Joe, which I read has around 60-120mg of caffeine, absolutely wires me. What's the science behind this? Could it be due to the other compounds and chemicals in the drinks? I hear that caffeine from different sources can have very different effects on the body; could that be it?

I tried to seek the answer out myself, but I just got linked to articles loosely based on coffee and energy drinks that didn't answer the question. Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!

No cognition, no awareness, no nothing. What drives them to replicate? My understanding is that they're in the twilight zone between living and non-living matter, but that just begs more questions than it answers!

If a virus is basically nothing more than an RNA grenade that gets chucked into other living cells, how does it know that it WANTS to do that? How can a grenade want for anything?

As the title states. I’m guessing on the flair.

Is database just a huge hard disk somewhere ?

So the bull cannot see the color red, then what does his brain interpret using this lack of sight distinction? Another color? Nothing/Anything ? And we humans what exactly happens when we observe a color we can’t see, And is there such thing here on earth??

I went for a walk yesterday (over 10k steps) and it was a mixture of terrain. This morning my foot is hurting to the point of not being able to walk properly.

My question is, why does it hurt the next day and not right after the activity? What is happening to my body/foot when I am resting (sleeping).

Why are we​ the only animals that can throw things well?

I've just watched a video about thresher sharks, and they are a species of shark who have evolved to have a really really long tail, that they use as a weapon during hunting. No other shark has anything like this as far as I know? And it made me wonder how has that evolved to get to that state, but no other breed has?

Putting my question simply, how does a shark go 'I think I'll use my tail as a weapon' and it eventually turns into a thresher shark, and a basking shark for example goes 'I think I'll just swim around with my mouth open and eat whatever goes in'. BUT, nothing goes 'Sometimes I'll use my tail, and sometimes I'll just have my mouth open' and we end up with a long tailed, big mouthed shark?

Explanations kept purely to sharks would be greatly appreciated but not necessary.